Pregnancy in men has a place in the medical literature. Witness this new study:
“Pregnancy in Women and Men with Vasculitis,” Megan E. B. Clowse, Rachel L. Richeson, Carl Pieper, Peter A Merkel, for the Vasculitis Clinical Research Consortium, Arthritis Care and Research, epub February 11, 2013. The authors, at Duke University and the University of Pennsylvania, have some explaining to do — and eventually they do answer them. Here are highlights from the report:
Objective: Pregnancy outcomes of patients with vasculitis are unknown but are of great concern to patients and physicians….
Methods: Participants in the Vasculitis Clinical Research Consortium Patient Contact Registry were invited to respond to an anonymous, Internet-based survey that included questions about pregnancy outcomes, the timing of pregnancy relative to a diagnosis of vasculitis, and medication use….
Results: … 74 pregnancies after a diagnosis of vasculitis were reported by women and 18 by men…. Among the pregnancies conceived by men with vasculitis, the timing of diagnosis had no significant effect on the rate of pregnancy loss….
Many questions remain unanswered for women and men who develop vasculitis prior to conception…
Participants were asked to report the total number of pregnancies they had carried (women) or fathered (men)…
(Thanks to investigator Ivan Oransky for bringing this to our attention.)