Scientists from The University of Hong Kong found that the COVID19 virus can cause testicular damage, chronic asymmetric testicular atrophy, and hormonal changes.
They suggest in managing convalescent COVID-19 males, it is important to be aware of possible hypogonadism (low sex drive) and subfertility. COVID-19 vaccination can prevent this complication.
The research is published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and was conducted by Kwok-yung Yuen et al.
Previous studies have reported testicular pain in COVID-19 patients.
One study of males who died from COVID-19 showed orchitis with lots of testicular cell damage, but SARS -CoV-2 was not consistently found in semen specimens.
In the current study, the team examined the testicular and hormonal changes of hamsters infected by the virus.
They found that virus-infected hamsters developed self-limiting pneumonia. But even intranasal SARS-CoV-2 challenge caused acute decrease in sperm count, and serum testosterone starting from the four to seven days.
The SARS-CoV-2 infected hamsters developed testicular atrophy with reduced testicular size and weight. The serum sex hormone level was markedly reduced at 42 to 120 days after infection. They also found testicular inflammation.
In addition, the inflammation, degeneration and necrosis of testicular tissue persisted.
Intranasal challenges with omicron and delta variants were found to induce similar testicular changes. These testicular damages can be prevented by vaccination.
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