Approximately 13.1 million men in the United States are diagnosed with low testosterone, or hypogonadism, annually. A fair percentage of these men are trying to conceive or wish to maintain fertility potential for the future. The traditional testosterone replacement medications may be appropriate for hypogonadal men who are done building their families, however; men who are trying to conceive or wish to maintain fertility potential should opt for other options, as traditional testosterone replacements such as gels, injections, or subcutaneous pellets suppress sperm production. A commonly used off-label medication to treat hypogonadism in men desiring to maintain fertility is clomiphene citrate. Interestingly, all testosterone replacement medications and clomiphene citrate have the risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT), or blood clots, as a potential side effects on the product labels.
Dr. Parviz Kavoussi states, “It is very uncommon to see a DVT in our patient population on testosterone or clomiphene”. Therefore, he sought out to assess the actual risk and recently published a study in the Urology Gold Journal evaluating this risk. The conclusions of this study revealed that the risk of DVT in patients being treated with any of the above medications for hypogonadism did not have a significantly higher risk of DVT than general population risks. In fact, when the study stratified out men who had DVT for other obvious reasons, such as clotting disorders or trauma, the rate of DVT in patients on treatment for hypogonadism was similar to general population risk, around 0.2%.
To read entire study click here.