Biology and Medicine

Abstract

Heavy Metals in Semen of Oligospermic Patients without Known Etiologic Factors

Anna Flavia Rispoli, Guglielmo Stabile, Carminia Marina Ingenito, Mariano Stabile

Environmental contaminants, heavy metals and pesticides, could be a cause for oligoasthenospermia. Analyses of the five heavy metals (Pb, Cd, Hg, Ni, and Cu) have showed values that are above the normal range in oligospermic patients in a selected group. We used blood values to ascertain reference values for heavy metal concentrations, as there is a lack of baseline values for seminal plasma in previously published papers. Three recent research projects in the same area of southern Italy (“Land of fires” in Campania and Sicily) have shown correlation between environmental pollution from heavy metals and oligospermia. At the Zygote Center in Salerno (Campania, Italy), a group comprising 200 couples with fertility problems was monitored over a 2-year period. A group of eight oligospermic men was selected according to the following criteria: (1) absence of genetic factors; (2) absence of cryptorchidism, epididymitis, and varicocele. The patient sample group is small, because selection criteria are very strict. Tests were conducted on a group of 20 normospermic patients, as a control sample. A specific amount of seminal fluid was first centrifuged and then analyzed using atomic absorption spectrophotometry, which is used to determine the presence of heavy metals. Subsequently, the High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry technique was applied to detect a panel of 500 pesticides. Traces of heavy metals in seminal plasma have been found in 4 out of 8 in the sample group and in 2 of the control patients. The difference was statistically significant. No pesticides were found either in control or in oligospermic patients.