Namrata Shrivastava1, Vaibhav Shrivastava2, Manish Pandey3
BACKGROUND
Infertility is defined as the inability to conceive after at 1 year of regular
unprotected intercourse. Male contributes to almost half of infertility cases and in
almost 30 % of cases, no definite aetiology is identified, and hence, male infertility
is labelled idiopathic in these cases. Oxidative energy production mechanisms are
almost always accompanied by reactive oxygen species (ROS), generation whose
too much concentrations can lead to extensive protein damage and cytoskeletal
modifications and inhibit cellular mechanisms. A number of laboratory techniques
have been developed to evaluate oxidative stress by measuring ROS level in the
semen. In recent times antioxidant supplements have been proposed as useful
agents to increase the scavenging capacity of seminal plasma, controversy still
surrounds their actual clinical utility.
METHODS
34 male patients were included in this study. Reactive oxygen species detection
was done by Flowcytometry using dichloroflurosecindiacetate (DCFH-DA).
RESULTS
The ROS in the patient group was found to be significantly higher 29.821 (5.6300
than the control group 22.162 (1.6331 having p value < 0.001). The ROS (29.821
± 5.6300) was found to be significantly reduced after 3 months of antioxidant
therapy which got reduced to 19.893 ± 4.2299 respectively.
CONCLUSIONS
Our study demonstrates that infertile men have significantly higher level of ROS
(as measured by flowcytometry) & lower sperm count (oligospermia), decreased
progressive & total motility and increased immotile sperms as compared to healthy
fertile men. This study further proves that antioxidant therapy based on a
combination of carnitine, zinc, coq10, lycopene and vitamin C & E for 3 months is
associated with a decrease of ROS as measured by flowcytometry & a variable
degree of improvement in above mentioned semen parameters.
