Ambient sulfur dioxide could have an impact on testicular volume from a observational study on a population of infertile
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Ambient sulfur dioxide could have an impact on testicular volume from a observational study on a population of infertile male Yu-An Chen1,2, Yi-Kai Chang1, Yann-Rong Su3 and Hong-Chiang Chang1*
Abstract Background: The effect of ambient pollutants on the male reproductive system is controversial. This retrospective study investigated the effect of environmental pollutants on male reproductive health. Methods: Male patients with primary infertility (n = 282) were identified from a single center between January 2016 and December 2017. Patients were physically examined for the presence of varicocele and for the volume of both testicles. Semen quality was measured in terms of the total sperm count, sperm concentration, and the percentage of sperm cells with motility and normal morphology. Data were acquired on the concentration of ambient pollutants, namely particulate matters of diameter < 2.5 μm, sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and ozone (O3), measured on daily and hourly basis, from the Environmental Protection Administration Executive Yuan, Taiwan. Individual exposure to pollutants was estimated based on the reported residential address of each participant. Statistical analysis indicated the effect of each pollutant on the testicular volume, sex hormone profile, and semen parameters. Results: The mean ± standard deviation of age was 36.7 ± 7.3 years. The average sperm count and concentration were 41.9 million/mL and 34.1 million/mL, respectively. The mean levels of serum testosterone, follicle-stimulating hormone, and luteinizing hormone were 3.57 ± 1.68 ng/mL, 7.59 ± 6.3 IU/L, and 4.68 ± 3.49 IU/L, respectively. According to the multivariate linear regression model, NOx exposure was a risk factor for decreased sperm concentration and motility (p = 0.043 and 0.032). Furthermore, SO2 exposure was negatively associated and testicular volume (p < 0.01). (Continued on next page)
* Correspondence: [email protected] The maps depicted in Figs. 1–4 are adapted from the datasets of the National Land Surveying and Mapping Center MOI 2019–20, which is available to the public under the Open Government Data Licenses and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. 1 Department of Urology, National Taiwan University Hospital and National Taiwan University College of Medicine, No.1, Changde St., Zhongzheng Dist, Taipei City 10048, Taiwan Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line t
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