[The serum testosterone level of patients with bronchial asthma treated with corticosteroids and untreated]

The testosterone basic level was followed up in 427 asthmatic male patients treated and not treated with corticosteroids. In 172 of them (40.68%) basic low blood testosterone was found, in 1/3 of the patients (32.32%) the morning testosterone level was below 200 ng% and in 37 patients (8.67%) it was below 100 ng%. Low blood testosterone was more frequent in the corticosteroid-treated patients than in the patients who had never been treated with corticosteroids (31.63%). Among the untreated patients low blood testosterone was more frequent in the patients with nonatopic (40.82%) than in the patients with atopic (24.67%) and mixed type (27.16%) of bronchial asthma. Low blood testosterone was found mainly in the patients with severe (37.76%) and moderate (40.00%) form of the disease and very rarely in patients with mild form of bronchial asthma (8.51%). The basic testosterone level changes are probably due to the stress, hypoxia and corticosteroid treatment. The possibility of a direct suppressive action of exo- and endoallergens on the testes are discussed.