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Haitham Hamoda
King's Fertility
What is premature ovarian insufficiency?
Dr Haitham Hamoda explains that premature ovarian insufficiency refers to a signification decline in egg quantity in women under the age of 40.
Transcript
Premature ovarian insufficiency refers to a significant decline in egg quantity in women under the age of 40. So, in other words, it's almost an extreme form of low ovarian reserve or further down the spectrum with low ovarian reserve. So, you can look at ovarian reserve, if you look at it and say it progresses from normal on one end to premature menopause at the other end. As it declines, it can move down to low ovarian reserve, very low ovarian reserve, premature ovarian insufficiency. And then when the menstrual cycles fully stop, one would describe it as premature menopause. The difference between premature ovarian insufficiency and premature menopause is that while the individual has got very low ovarian reserve, they still are having menstrual cycles, but these are infrequent. So, the patients may present having a menstrual period every three months, every four months. So they are still having menstrual cyclical activity, but it is infrequent.