Male Infertility Risk Factors

Dear Colleagues,

I would like to invite you to contribute in preparing and submitting manuscripts dedicated to “Male Infertility Risk Factors” for this special issue of the Journal of Men’s Health.

Human male infertility is a major health problem that affects approximately 10 to 15% of couples worldwide. Recent evidence shows that infertility rates have dramatically risen over the past few decades as more couples are waiting longer to have children. In this special issue, we would like to focus on male infertility risk factors.

Human male infertility is a multifactorial syndrome encompassing a wide variety of disorders. Anatomic defects underlying male infertility include varicocele, vesicular damage due to torsion, obstruction of testicular sperm passage and ejaculatory failures, genital tract infections, gametogenesis dysfunction, molecular genetics disorders, endocrine disturbances and immunologic problems. Additionally, factors such as life style, environment and smoking have also been reported to affect gamete and embryo development. Infertile men with no past history and normal semen analyses are designated as ‘idiopathic infertile’. Oxidative stress induced by reactive oxygen species (ROS), sperm DNA damage, genetic abnormalities and associated syndromes are responsible for the symptoms of Idiopathic infertility. More importantly, some of these abnormalities may transmit to the offspring via assisted reproductive techniques (ART) such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and result in the birth of boys with higher risk of infertility and congenital abnormalities. Therefore, identification of these risk factors and their mechanisms on human spermatozoa and infertility is worthful for andrologists and clinicians prior to any therapeutic procedures. 

This special issue offers an opportunity to address the following but other topics:

·  Identification of new risk factors responsible for idiopathic male infertility

·  The potential roles of oxidative stress in the context of human reproduction

·  Factors that affect the outcome of ART in the context of human reproduction

·  The importance of genes and various mutations in male infertility

·  Role of epigenetic modifications in the context of human male infertility

·  Identification of new cases of genetic syndromes with infertility problem

·  Mechanisms of action of environmental toxicants and heavy elements on sperm function and infertility

Your contribution is welcome in form of original article, case report, commentary and review.

Let’s share our experience to the better care of the patients of all of us.

Dr. Eisa Tahmasbpour Marzouni

Dr. Martin Stimpfel

Guest Editors