ALTERED TESTICULAR HORMONE PRODUCTION IN INFERTILE PATIENTS WITH IDIOPATHIC OLIGOATHENOSPERMIA - A CORROBORATIVE STUDY

In a previous report we demonstrated that oligoasthenospermic (OAZ) pa tients had two types of testicular response to human chorionic gonadot ropin (hCG) as compared to that of fertile men (FM). One group showed a blunted early testosterone (T) peak (OAZ-1) and the second group (OA Z-2) had a response similar to that of FM. The purpose of this study w as to extend our original observations by using a larger number of OAZ patients and to determine whether the acute T response to hCG was gre ater than the highest value of the physiological episodic fluctuations in T. Serum T levels were evaluated in 932 OAZ individuals before and 2, 4, 24 and 72 h after administration of 5,000 U of hCG. In a second study T levels were measured in blood samples obtained every 5 min du ring 6 h in 10 FM, and every 5 min during 4 h in 10 OAZ-1 and 10 OAZ-2 individuals. 59.4% of the OAZ men showed a type 1 T response to hCG. Secondly, the post-hCG T levels were higher (P < 0.01) than the pre-hC G value in both FM and OAZ-2 patients when a single or a mean of multi ple basal samples were compared. Med Sci Res 26:513-516 (C) 1998 Lippi ncott Williams & Wilkins.