What are the Rotterdam criteria for diagnosing PCOS?
What are the Rotterdam criteria?
The Rotterdam criteria are a referral to a clinical diagnosis of PCOS. A patient who presents with two of the following symptoms: hyperandrogenism, ovulatory dysfunction, and polycystic ovaries.
The official diagnosis is done by Rotterdam Criteria which says that either two of the three factors should be present. So the diagnosis is based on the basis of symptoms either so, patients should have either the symptoms or on the basis of blood tests so, we do some hormones like FSH, LH, prolactin, estrogen levels. If some of them are deranged and hormonal imbalance is there, then that could lead us to think about polycystic ovaries and then imaging modalities pelvic ultrasound scans (there’s a typical appearance of ovaries on ultrasound scan). We call it polycystic appearance where there are tiny sacs which are two to eight millimeter and there are more than ten sacks in each ovary and the volume of the ovary becomes more and more than normal because it contains a bit thick tissue in between the follicles which secretes testosterone male hormone. Ovarian volume is increased, there are multiple tiny sacs of a typical size with the ovary – so this gives a typical ultrasound appearance of a polycystic ovary. Any two of these either symptoms or blood or ultrasound criteria – any two of these three are there, then the patient fulfills the criteria for a diagnosis of PCOS.
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