CORRELATION OF BLOOD AND SEMINAL PLASMA ZINC LEVELS AND SEMEN PARAMETERS INFERTILE AND INFERTILE NIGERIAN MEN.

Abstract

BACKGROUND:Infertility constitutes a major part of the health problems in our society
and male infertility is a serious problem all over the world. Nutritional deficiency of trace
elements like zinc play a role in male infertility as zinc plays an important role not only in
normal testicular development, but also in spermatogenesis and sperm motility.
OBJECTIVE:To evaluate and compare the concentrations of zinc in blood and seminal
plasma with semen parameters among fertile and infertile Nigeria men.
STUDY DESIGN:A prospective case-control study.
SUBJECTS AND METHODS:Eighty five men with primary infertilitywhose partners had been
fully investigated and found essentially normal, aged 20-55 years were enrolled as
cases.The control group were made up of eighty five men with normozoospermia whose
partners had spontaneous conception. After semen analysis the cases were further
grouped asoligozoospermic (n=64), asthenozoospermic (n=13) and azoospermic (n=8).All
the semen samples were analyzed according to WHO 2010 criteria. Blood and seminal
plasma concentration of zinc were determined by microwave plasma-atomic emission
spectrophotometer. The results were coded,fed into the computer and analyzed using
theStatistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS)IBM version 19. Chi square test was used to
compare categorical variables and t-test was used to compare means. Mann Whitney U
test and Kruskal wallis test were used to compare median of two or more than two
numerical variables respectively.Spearman rho correlation was used to determine
correlation between numerical variables that were not normally distributed. For all
statistical test p was considered significant if it was less than 0.05.
RESULTS: Except for semen volume, all the semen parameters were significantly lower
among the infertile men thanthe fertile group. The median blood zinc concentrationswere
significantly lower in the infertile group compared with those in the fertile group;
1.7μmol/L(IQR 0.6,2.7) versus 3.2μmol/L (IQR 1.6,5.2), p<0.001. The median seminal
plasma zinc concentrations were also significantly lower in the infertile group compared
with those in the fertile group; 9.0 μmol/L (IQR 6.1,11.0) versus 19.4 μmol/L (IQR
14.0,25.5), p<0.001. There was a significant positive correlation between seminal plasma
zinc levels and progressive sperm motility (r=0.251p=0.045) in the oligozoospermic
infertile men. Also, blood zinc levels showed a significant positive correlation with sperm
count (r=0.311 p=0.012), progressive motility (r=0.252 p= 0.045) and total motility (r=0.285
p=0.022) in the oligozoospermic men. There was no significant correlation between blood
zinc levels and seminal plasma zinc levels among the fertile men (r=0.008 p=0.940) and
infertile men (r=0.115 p=0.297). Howeverblood zinc level was significantly positively
correlated with seminal plasma zinc levelin the study population irrespective of their
fertility status.
CONCLUSION: On the basis of the findings of this studyblood and seminal plasma zinc
levels were significantly lower in the infertile group than the fertile group.Blood and
seminal plasma zinc levels were significantly positively correlated with semen parameters
in oligozospermic infertile Nigeria men and alsoblood zinc levels were significantly
positively correlated with seminal plasma zinc levels.

CORRELATION OF BLOOD AND SEMINAL PLASMA ZINC LEVELS AND SEMEN PARAMETERS INFERTILE AND INFERTILE NIGERIAN MEN.