It’s More Than Just The Testicles

June 24th, 2013 § 4 comments § permalink

An article in press in Fertility and Sterility is getting a lot of media attention. The study connected men seeking infertility care to a cancer registry in the State where the clinic was located. The researchers found that men with infertility had almost twice the chance of getting cancer and almost three times the chance if the man had no sperm in his ejaculate.

The authors of the study have a few theories about why cancer and male infertility may be connected. Cells need to divide just right to make sperm in the testes, and problems with division could lead to both problems with making sperm and the kind of bad division that makes cancer. It could also be that toxic substances in the environment may lead to both infertility and cancer.

Whatever the reason, we’re beginning to understand that problems with male fertility are just a tip of a much bigger iceberg that involves health in general. It’s more than just about the testicles.

World’s First Human Uterus Transplant

February 6th, 2013 § Comments Off on World’s First Human Uterus Transplant § permalink

While this isn’t specifically male health, I do write from time to time about important developments in reproductive medicine. Dr. Munire Akar from Aktinez University In Antalya Turkey reports in Fertility and Sterility the results of the world’s first human uterus transplant from a multiorgan donor. While transplant surgery has been around for a while and is a well accepted form of medical therapy, reproductive organs have come late to transplantation. This is undoubtedly the beginning of a new world for men and women previously unable to conceive for reasons of anatomy. If you’d like to hear Dr. Munire Akar talk about her work, click here. If you’d like to participate in a discussion on her article, click here.