Title:Hormonal Male Contraception
Volume: 27
Issue: 24
Author(s): Aleksander Giwercman*
Affiliation:
- Dept. Of Translational Medicine, Lund University, Malmo,Sweden
Keywords:
Male, contraception, hormonal, testosterone, gestagens, side effects, azoospermia, semen quality, gonadotropins.
Abstract:
The demand for availability of efficient and safe contraceptive methods is strengthened by the predictions
made by the United Nations regarding the future growth of the human population. So far, women are not
only the main victims of the unsafe procedures related to terminating unwished pregnancies but do also carry the
main responsibility for family planning. There is a significant desire among men for sharing this responsibility
and a substantial proportion of females are willing to trust their male partners in regard to the use of contraception.
Therefore, there is a need for developing new reversible, safe, effective, acceptable, affordable and available
methods of male contraception. Thus, hormonal manipulation resulting in the suppression of sperm production
seems, so far, to be the most feasible approach to achieve the above-mentioned goal.
Several strategies of such hormonal manipulation have been tested. Most of them are based on the administration
of more or less supra-physiological doses of exogenous testosterone, alone or in combination with other means of
endocrine suppression of gonadotropin secretion.
Although, so far, the goal of hormonal male contraception fulfilling the above-mentioned criteria, has not yet
been achieved; continuing development of new molecules, gives hope for the near future.
