Prevalence of idiopathic hirsutism: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Although the negative impacts of idiopathic hirsutism (IH) on psychological aspects are well-documented, there is no enough study estimating the prevalence of this endocrine disorder.

This meta-analysis was conducted to estimate the pooled prevalence of IH in the women population.

PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases were explored to obtain papers published from inception to September 2020 investigating the prevalence of IH in women. A meta-regression was conducted to assess the impact of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) diagnostic criteria, and ethnicity on the pooled prevalence of IH.

Of 8346 records retrieved through searching databases and other sources, eight studies were selected for the final analyses. The pooled prevalence of idiopathic hirsutism among women, regardless of PCOS diagnostic criteria, and the race was 7.74% (95% CI: 4.10, 14.14). The meta-regression analysis showed that the pooled prevalence of idiopathic hirsutism did not significantly differ based on the PCOS diagnostic criteria and ethnicity. A subgroup analysis based on the PCOS criteria showed the pooled prevalence of 7.24% (95% CI: 2.84, 17.24), 13.05% (95% CI: 10.02, 16.81), and 3.12% (95% CI: 2.16, 4.48) for NIH (National Institutes of Health), Rotterdam, and not reported PCOS diagnostic criteria groups, respectively. The subgroup analysis based on the ethnicity estimated a pooled prevalence of 6.01% (95% CI: 1.87, 17.69) and 9.36% (4.07, 16.63) for European and Asian groups, respectively.

The meta-analysis demonstrated that the pooled prevalence of IH was 7.74% and there was no difference between PCOS criteria and ethnicity subgroups.