Increased Gonadotropins and prolactin are linked to infertility in males

Infertility has become a significant issue among married couples worldwide. The association of variations in reproductive hormones with infertility is evaluated at a tertiary care hospital in North India. A total of 220 infertile males having infertility longer than one year (cases) and 220 age-matched fertile males with confirmed paternity in past two to three years (controls) were enrolled for the study. Serum levels of LH, FSH, testosterone and PRL were measured by Roche e411 autoanalyzer using electrochemiluminescense immunoassay technique. Significant higher levels of serum hormone (mean±SD) were found in cases vs. controls; LH (9.02±7.81 vs. 5.22±1.45 mIU/ml), FSH (11.45±14.02 vs. 4.09±1.62 mIU/ml) and PRL (199.08±80.79 vs. 127.23±81.64 µIU/ml). However, the serum testosterone level was significantly low in cases associated with male infertility (4.62±2.03 vs. 6.82±2.79 ng/ml). LH, FSH and PRL levels were significantly increased in azoospermic, oligozoospermic and asthenozoospermic infertile males while FSH and PRL were significantly elevated in normozoospermic infertile group. Conversely, mean serum testosterone levels were significantly low in all infertile subgroups in comparison to fertile controls. PRL showed a significant prediction of Normozoospermia (AUC=0.836, Z=4.916, p<0.001) in ROC analysis. Data presented here is interesting, requiring further confirmation using larger samples of multiple cohorts.