Polychlorinated biphenyls and testosterone: age and congener related correlation approach in heavily exposed males

It was aimed to evaluate some fundamental correlations of 15 individual PCB congeners and their sum with serum testosterone level in highly and long-term exposed males with special respect to minimize the interfering effect of age.

A total of 834 males from eastern Slovakia (age range of 21-78 years; median, 75th and 90th percentile of 48, 54 and 58 years, respectively) were examined consisting of 432 males from highly polluted area and 402 males from the area of background pollution. In all of them the serum level of 15 polychlorinated biphenyl congeners (PCBs), hexachlorobenzene (HCB) and dichlorodiethyl-dichloroethylene (DDE) was measured by gas chomatography/mass spectrometry and total testosterone in serum was measured with the aid of electrochemiluminiscent immunoassay. Pearson's correlation coefficients for each individual PCB congener as well as for Sigma15PCBs with testosterone were assessed in the cohort of all 834 males and also in the cohort of 444 males with age range of 41-55 years in which any significant negative influence of age on testosterone level has not been found and thus the interfering effect of aging on that level was apparently minimized.

In the cohort of 834 males with high level of Sigma15PCBs (median = 885; range = 211-77,084; 5% - 95% = 377 - 4051 ng/g lipid) and highly significant negative correlation with age (r= 0.303; p<0.000) a significant negative correlation (p<0.05) with testosterone has been observed only for two mono-ortho-congeners (CB-105 and -118). However, in the cohort of 444 males aged 41-55 years any significant correlation for individual PCB congeners and for Sigma15PCBs with testosterone did not appear.

In a large cohort of highly exposed males with minimized interfering effect of age any significant correlations between 15 PCB congeners analyzed and total testosterone were not found.