Introduction to Medication Effects on Male Reproduction

The over-arching goal of this volume is to help infertility practitioners evaluate and manage their patients with poor semen quality. Medications can negatively impact on male reproduction and these effects are of increasing concern. People world-wide are using more medications than in the past, including men of childbearing age. In addition, men are fathering children later in life than previously, which is associated with greater medication use in the reproductive population. Finally, people are experiencing more chronic disease at earlier ages, particularly in developed countries. Taken together, these factors have increased the number of prescribed and over-the-counter (OTC) drugs being taken by men attempting fatherhood. There is some evidence in the literature that medications, even some common OTC medications, can negatively impact male reproduction, and yet, medication use is inadequately addressed in the evaluation of male infertility and fertility plans are rarely considered by providers before prescribing medications. In this volume, we systematically consider medications being used world-wide, focusing on those that might cause poor semen quality in men with otherwise idiopathic infertility. Extensive tables are provided in this volume that summarize the research for each specific medication, and it is our hope that these tables will be useful in day-to-day counseling of infertility patients and of men desiring fertility. Although some specialist practitioners are aware that there are pharmacological negative effects on male fertility, most practitioners are not, and the published evidence is surprisingly sparse. We hope that this volume will encourage our readers to conduct robust, well-designed studies to inform clinical practice.