There are over 13 million men who are newly diagnosed with low testosterone annually in the United States. A big challenge in treating these men, is that giving men traditional testosterone replacement therapy such as topical gels or injections suppresses sperm production and can impact a man’s fertility. A commonly used off label medication to stimulate cells to make more testosterone when needed, in men wanting to maintain sperm production is Clomiphene Citrate (CC). Although most men will respond to CC with a rise in testosterone levels to normalized levels, not all men do. Dr. Kavoussi’s research evaluating what pre-treatment factors can predict who will respond and who will not, was presented at the 2018 American Urological Association meeting which was held in San Francisco.
Dr. Kavoussi states, “Our study found that pre-treatment luteinizing hormone (LH) levels were the only predictor of who would fail to respond to CC. LH is the hormone that is secreted by the pituitary gland to command the testicles to make testosterone.”
This data which was presented at the American Urological Association meeting, with over 16,000 urologists from all over the world in attendance, can help physicians guide and counsel patients who have low testosterone, wanting to maintain fertility potential, on whether CC is a good choice for them to achieve these goals.