Female Infertility and Autoimmunity

Autoimmune diseases occur when the immune system attacks and destroys the organs and tissues of its own host. Eighty percent of autoimmune patients are women and autoimmune disorders often start in women of childbearing age. These diseases are a heterogenous group of pathologies. Some are systemic, like systemic lupus erythematosus, antiphospholipid syndrome, polymyositis, dermatomyositis, while others are organ-specific, like thyroid autoimmune disease and celiac disease. The problem with autoimmune disease is that, once it has developed, a wider range of autoimmune reactions may be triggered, so that an individual may develop more than one autoimmune disorder. The following review focuses on thyroid autoimmunity and its association with other autoimmune diseases suspected of interfering with female reproductive outcome.