Despite significant advances in contraceptive options for women over the last 50 yr, world population continues to grow rapidly. Scientists and activists alike point to the devastating environmental impacts that population pressures have caused, including global warming from the developed world and hunger and disease in less developed areas. Moreover, almost half of all pregnancies are still unwanted or unplanned. Clearly, there is a need for expanded, reversible, contraceptive options. Multicultural surveys demonstrate the willingness of men to participate in contraception and their female partners to trust them to do so. Notwithstanding their paucity of options, male methods including vasectomy and condoms account for almost one third of contraceptive use in the United States and other countries. Recent international clinical research efforts have demonstrated high efficacy rates (90-95%) for hormonally based male contraceptives. Current barriers to expanded use include limited delivery methods and perceived regulatory obstacles, which stymie introduction to the marketplace. However, advances in oral and injectable androgen delivery are cause for optimism that these hurdles may be overcome. Nonhormonal methods, such as compounds that target sperm motility, are attractive in their theoretical promise of specificity for the reproductive tract. Gene and protein array technologies continue to identify potential targets for this approach. Such nonhormonal agents will likely reach clinical trials in the near future. Great strides have been made in understanding male reproductive physiology; the combined efforts of scientists, clinicians, industry and governmental funding agencies could make an effective, reversible, male contraceptive an option for family planning over the next decade.

Advances in male contraception.

Fullerene-C60-modified electrode as a sensitive voltammetric sensor for detection of nandrolone--an anabolic steroid used in doping.

Steroid fluctuations modify functional cerebral asymmetries: the hypothesis of progesterone-mediated interhemispheric decoupling

https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(99)00093-X/pdf

Salivary estradiol and progesterone levels in conception and nonconception cycles in women: evaluation of a new assay for salivary estradiol.

Assessing estradiol in biobehavioral studies using saliva and blood spots: simple radioimmunoassay protocols, reliability, and comparative validity.

To test the effects of antiandrogen treatment on the endocrine system 20 normal young men were treated with 750 mg/day flutamide [4-nitro 3′-trifluoromethylisobutyranilide (FLU)] or 100 mg/day cyproterone acetate (CPA) for 14 days followed or preceded by a placebo treatment of the same duration 4 weeks apart. Allocation of both drugs and sequence of active and placebo substance was by random number in a double blind design. On days 1 and 14 two basal blood samples were obtained 15 min apart followed by an iv injection of 25 μg GnRH and 10 mg metoclopramide (MTCL). Subsequently blood samples were taken after 25, 45, 60, and 90 min. On day 8 the GnRH/MTCL test was performed after 13 basal blood samples were obtained to establish a baseline for PRL concentrations unbiased by short term stress. After 14 days of FLU treatment, serum testosterone (T) increased significantly [17.4 ± 1.4 (SE) vs. 26.9 ± 1.5 nmol/ liter, as well as estradiol (E2) concentrations (144 ± 12 vs. Ill ± 20 pmol/liter). Dihydrot...

Rolf Hano

Papers

Effect of Flutamide or Cyproterone Acetate on Pituitary and Testicular Hormones in Normal Men

Pharmacokinetics of 19-nortestosterone esters in normal men.

Estradiol in saliva for monitoring follicular stimulation in an in vitro fertilization program