ORLANDO, FL USA (UroToday.com) - Lower general health status is often associated with male factor infertility. In this AUA presentation, Dr. Michele Colichhia presented her group’s efforts to study the prevalence of the impact of infertility on comorbidities in a population of European men.
The authors used the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) for their assessments. They also evaluated testicular volume with a Prader orchidometer and assessed semen analysis with World Health Organization Criteria.
Of the patients they studied, 92.5% had no comorbidities, while 54 and 53 men had comorbidities of 1 and greater or equal to 2, respectively. Interestingly, results that were presented showed that patients with CCI greater than or equal to 2 were older, had lower left testicular volume, and had higher FSH levels.
In their conclusions at the end of the presentation, the authors suggested that lower testicular volume, hormonal abnormalities, and pathological sperm motility have an association with poor health in the population of men they studied. The discussion that followed suggested that lower testicular volume may just be an effect of aging and thus there might not be any causal relationship between testicular volume and poor health outcomes.
Presented by Michele Colicchia at the American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting - May 16 - 21, 2014 - Orlando, Florida USA
Milan, Italy
Written by Garen Abedi, MD, University of California (Irvine), and medical writer for UroToday.com
