Evaluation of Lipid Peroxidation As An Indirect Measure of Oxidative Stress in Seminal Plasma

Background: it has been proposed that oxidative stress plays an important role in maleinfertility. the aims of this study were to compare seminal plasma levels of 15-f2t-isoprostane(8-iso-pgf2?), malondialdehyde (mda), and total (sum of free and bound) homocysteine(thcy) in normozoospermic vs. asthenozoospermic men, and to examine the relationshipsbetween thcy and lipid peroxidation products.materials and methods: the study was a case-control study with a simple random sampling.the case group consisted of 15 asthenozoospermic males. this group was compared with 15normozoospermic men. seminal plasma levels of 15-f2t-isoprostane and thcy were measuredusing commercially available enzyme immunoassay (eia) kits. mda levels were determinedby the thiobarbituric acid (tba) assay. the mann-whitney u test was used to compare twogroups. coefficients of correlation were calculated using spearman’s correlation analysis. allhypothesis tests were two-tailed with statistical significance assessed at the p value < 0.05level.results: mda levels were lower in asthenozoospermic subjects than in control subjects(0.72±0.06 ?m vs. 0.40±0.06 ?m; p < 0.05). no differences were seen in 15-f2t-isoprostanelevels in asthenozoospermic subjects and controls (65.00±3.20 pg/ml vs. 58.17±4.12 pg/ml;p > 0.05). interestingly, thcy levels were slightly higher in asthenozoospermic subjects than incontrols (6.18±1.17 ?m vs. 4.8±0.52?m). sperm motility was inversely correlated withseminal plasma 15-f2t-isoprostane and mda levels, respectively (p < 0.05).conclusion: seminal plasma levels of 15-f2t-isoprostane and thcy showed no significantdifferences between normozoospermic and asthenozoospermic men. sperm motilitycorrelated inversely with seminal plasma levels of 15-f2t-isoprostane and mda. norelationship was found between thcy and lipid peroxidation. however, higher sample size isrequired to confirm these findings.