Detection of Antisperm Antibodies in Relation to Inhibin B in Infertile Men

Antisperm antibodies (ASAs) was considered as an immunological cause of male infertility. Serum inhbin B has a strong relationship with spermatogenesis and can be
considered as a cause of infertility. The aims of the study are to: 1- Detect the presence of antisperm antibodies in both sera and seminal plasma of infertile patients and control group. 2- Find the effect of antisperm antibodies in seminal fluid parameters. 3- Exclude other male sex hormones as a cause of infertility. 4- Estimate serum level of inhbin B in the studied groups. 5- Determine the relationship between serum inhbin B and total sperm count in infertile males. A total number of (90) individual, in which 70 infertile male patients with period of infertility more than one year and 20 fertile males as control group. The study was carried out on patients attending infertility care in a period of one year from June 2011 to June 2012, 90 semen samples were studied for semen analysis and for serological (ASAs) test and 90 serum samples for serological (ASA) study by using micro agglutination test and for hormonal assay (Latinizing hormone (LH), Follicular stimulating hormone (FSH), testosterone, prolactin) and inhibin B by using Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA). There was no significant difference between patients and controls according to the serum level of (LH, FSH ,testosterone, and prolactin), antisperm antibodies found positive in sera and semen of 15 (21.42%) of patients with titer 1/32 on semen and 1/64 in serum. The remainder 55 (78.57%) patients, showed negative results for (ASAs). There was a significant difference between mean % of total motility, mean % of normal sperm morphology and mean of total sperm counts of patients with positive ASAs results when compared to its mean in the control group. Mean concentration of serum inhibin B in patients with negative (ASAs) result was (32.24) pg/ml, while of control group was (73.55) pg/ml. The difference was considered highly significant. There was significant correlation between total sperm count of patients with negative ASAs results and mean concentration of serum inhibin B. This study suggests that the detection of ASAs in semen and sera of patients decrease in normal seminal fluid parameters especially the motility and (ASAs)
can be considered as a cause of infertility in those patients, while low serum inhibin B in the reminder patients can be considered as a cause of infertility, then inhibin B can be considered as a marker for spermatogenesis.