Effects of the chronic use of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) on testicular weight and spermatogenesis: Experimental study in rats

Aim : The complete biological effects of chronicuse of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), reportedas a weak androgen, are not completelyunderstood. The aim of the present study is toevaluate the effects of chronic administrationof DHEA on the spermatogenesis in rats.Methods: Male Wistar rats, 4 months old, wereselected for the study. The animals weredivided into two groups. Group 1 ( n = 9) receivedplacebo (saline solution) 0.5 ml/day and Group2 ( n = 15) received DHEA 5 mg/kg/day. Both thegroups received the respective treatments 5days a week during 10 months. At the end of theexposure, the rats were sacrificed and thetestes removed, weighed and processed forhistologic analysis. Spermatogenesis wasevaluated as the mean number of seminiferoustubules with and without spermatids inmaturation phase in their lumen, in fiverandom fields on the same slide. Results : The median levels of serum totaltestosterone and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfatewas measured in the two groups. Significanthigher concentrations in total testosterone(2.06 ± 0.4 vs. 0.80 ± 0.2; p < 0.05) andDHEAS (222.1 ± 41.5 vs. 2.0 ± 0.3) wereobserved in the group treated with DHEA ascompared to the control group. The mean weightsof the right testes were 1.59 ± 0.3 ingroup 1 and 1.58 ± 0.2 g in group 2( p > 0.05). These values for the left testeswere 1.57 ± 0.3 and 1.55 ± 0.3 g,respectively ( p > 0.05). The histologicanalysis showed a mean of 13.5 ± 1.5 and12.8 ± 1.8 seminiferous tubules per field inthe groups 1 and 2, respectively ( p > 0.05).The same analysis demonstrated that in thecontrol group 0.06 ± 0.1 of the tubulespresented without spermatids in maturationphase and in the DHEA group this was observedin 0.22 ± 1.2 of the tubules ( p < 0.05). Conclusion : Chronic administration of DHEA inthe present dose did not show any detectableeffect on the quantitative and qualitativeanalyses of spermatogenesis in rats.