Study finds high-risk HPV in men linked to infertility

Researchers from Universidad Nacional de Cordoba in Argentina found that men are highly susceptible to HPV infections, which can lead to serious issues such as an increased risk of genital warts and cancers of the mouth, throat, penis, and anus. However, the most significant concern is the potential for infertility.

New Delhi: Human papillomavirus (HPV), a common sexually transmitted virus, can decrease the sperm quantity and quality in men leading to infertility, a study confirmed on Friday.

Researchers from Universidad Nacional de Cordoba in Argentina showed that men are very susceptible to HPV infections and have major problems such as the increased risk of genital warts and malignancies of the mouth, throat, penis, and anus.

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But the top problem is being rendered infertile.

The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, showed that men infected with high-risk HPV genotypes show evidence of sperm death from oxidative stress and an impaired immune response

The study “demonstrated that genital HPV infection is highly common in men and that, depending on the viral genotype that is causing the infection, the impact on sperm quality and semen inflammation might vary,” said Dr. Virginia Rivero, a professor at the varsity.

“Male fertility and the immune system’s capacity to fight off infection seem to be more negatively impacted by high-risk HPV genotype infections,” Rivero added.

HPV infections had been most common among women, leading to cervical cancer risk in 95 per cent of cases.

However, a recent study in the journal The Lancet showed that 1 in 3 men over the age of 15 are at least partially infected with genital HPV, and 1 in 5 have some infection with high-risk, or oncogenic, HPV strains.

The latest study focussed on 205 adult males in Argentina who visited a urology clinic for evaluations related to reproductive health or urinary tract problems between 2018 and 2021.

Nobody had received an HPV vaccination. Nineteen percent of the individuals tested positive for HPV, of which twenty men were found to have high-risk HPV (HR-HPV) and seven to have low-risk HPV (LR-HPV).

There was no discernible variation in the groups’ semen quality according to routine semen analysis. Nevertheless, additional high-resolution examination demonstrated that males who tested positive for HR-HPV had considerably fewer CD45+ white blood cell counts in their semen and higher levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which can harm sperm.

“We concluded that men infected with HR-HPV, but not LR-HPV, show increased sperm death due to oxidative stress and a weakened local immune response in the urogenital tract,” said Rivero, suggesting that HR-HPV-positive men could have impaired fertility.

The study raises important questions about how HR-HPV affects sperm DNA quality and its implications for reproduction and offspring health.