**Introduction**

**Chapter 1**

**Provisional chapter**

**Introductory Chapter: Polycystic Ovarian Disease: The**

The term polycystic ovarian disease is a misnomer. The question whether it is a disease whole by itself or a sign of a wider disease complex has eluded many physicians from early 1900s. The insult to the normal physiology occurs in adolescence or the cause is deep rooted during the genesis of life; that is, fertilization and embryo formation are not clear yet. It is said that a person diagnosed with polycystic ovarian disease in adulthood can have signs and symptoms of metabolic syndrome in future. It is one disease that affects an young girl who is being bullied for her hairy faces, and blisters on her faces to a women who is trying hard to work with her irregular and scanty periods, to women hoping to become pregnant and have a baby and to a middle aged women who has to remember to take her daily dosage of antihypertensive medication. With increasing number of patients presenting with symptoms of polycystic ovarian disease, the day is not far when it will become an emerging medical challenge.

**Introductory Chapter: Polycystic Ovarian Disease: The** 

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.73335

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution,

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

There has been long debate regarding the definition and diagnostic criteria of polycystic ovarian disease. The diagnostic criteria can be dated back to 1990, when National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) gave the first working diagnostic criteria [1].The NICHD criteria was based on majority opinion and was not on clinical trial [2]. Polycystic morphology of the ovaries was a consistent finding in women demonstrating biochemical and clinical evidence of the syndrome [3–6] that was not included in NICHD criteria. Then came the guideline by European Society for Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) and the American society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) criteria in 2003, which included the ultrasonographic finding of polycystic ovaries. The Rotterdam criteria are controversial.

**Rainbow Without Color (SPECTRUM)**

Abha Kiran, Uma Pandey and Neeraj Kumar Agarwal

**Rainbow Without Color (SPECTRUM)**

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Abha Kiran, Uma Pandey and

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.73335

**2. The challenges in diagnosis**

Neeraj Kumar Agarwal

**1. Introduction**

**Provisional chapter**
