ABSTRACT

Background: Male infertility occurs as a result of many pathological conditions. The role of oxidative stress is implicated in its cause. This study has been planned to evaluate the effect of oxidative stress on male fertility.

Aim and objective: To estimate the level of seminal plasma malondialdehyde(MDA) in normospermic and oligozoospermic men andto assess its effectson seminal parameters that determines the fertility.

Methodology: It is a hospital based cross-sectional study with the study population comprising of 10 normospermic men for the contol group and 10 oligospermic volunteers for the case group who were recruited based on their seminal parameters of sperm count, motility, morphology and viability .The marker of oxidative stress, malondialdehyde(MDA) was estimated in their seminal samples according to the method of Okhawa et al. to reflect the degree of oxidative stress.

Results: The level of MDA was 10.94 ± 4.03µg/ml in oligospermic when compared to normospermic men who had 6.37 ± 2.90 µg/ml and the increase in oligospermic is statistically significant (p<0.05) which correlates inversely with the sperm count, motility and viability.

Conclusion: The elevated levels of MDA in the seminal samples of oligospermic men reflects the occurrence of oxidative stress and this is obvious by the reduction in the sperm parameters of count, motility and viability in the oligospermic group,thus leading to infertility.

Keywords: Malondialdehyde, Oxidative stress, Sperm count

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