Author information

1 University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

2 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health; UWHealth Generations Fertility Care.

3 Department of Animal Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

4 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, West Virginia University School of Medicine.

5 Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

6 Clinical Research Division, ReproSource, Inc., Woburn, MA.

7 Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Electronic address: ssaha@medicine.wisc.edu.

Abstract

There are few data on the effects of methotrexate on reproductive capacity in men with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). We performed a case-control study to determine the effects of methotrexate on sperm quality and genetic integrity. We compared sperm samples from 7 men with IBD who had been exposed to methotrexate for at least 3 months with sperm samples collected from 1912 age-matched men at fertility centers (controls), where sperm parameters would be expected to be worse than those of the general population. Sperm were evaluated by basic semen analysis and advanced sperm integrity testing. In samples from men with IBD, all basic semen analysis parameters were within normal limits. However, these samples had reduced sperm integrity, based on significant increases in levels of DNA fragmentation and damage from oxidative stress compared with controls. Our findings indicate that methotrexate can reduce DNA integrity in sperm and cause damage via oxidative stress.