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Assessing the impact of in-utero exposures: potential effects of paracetamol on male reproductive development
  1. Karen R Kilcoyne1,
  2. Rod T Mitchell1,2
  1. 1 MRC Centre for Reproductive Health, University of Edinburgh, The Queen’s Medical Research Institute, Edinburgh, UK
  2. 2 Department of Diabetes and Endocrinology, Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Rod T Mitchell, MRC Centre for Reproductive Health, University of Edinburgh, The Queen’s Medical Research Institute, Edinburgh, EH16 4TJ, UK; rod.mitchell{at}ed.ac.uk

Abstract

Human male reproductive disorders (cryptorchidism, hypospadias, testicular cancer and low sperm counts) are common and some may be increasing in incidence worldwide. These associated disorders can arise from subnormal testosterone production during fetal life. This has resulted in a focus on in-utero environmental influences that may result in reproductive effects on the offspring in later life. Over recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the scientific literature describing associations between in-utero environmental exposures (eg, industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals) and subsequent reproductive outcomes in male offspring. This includes studies investigating a potential role for in-utero analgesic exposure(s) on the fetal testis; however, providing definitive evidence of such effects presents numerous challenges. In this review, we describe an approach to assessing the potential clinical relevance of in-utero (and postnatal) environmental exposures on subsequent male reproductive function using exposure to the analgesic paracetamol as an example.

  • Testis
  • Fertility
  • Paracetamol
  • Fetal
  • Environmental expsoure

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Footnotes

  • Contributors RTM and KRK contributed significantly to writing the review.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

  • Correction notice This paper has been amended since it was published Online First. Owing to a scripting error, some of the publisher names in the references were replaced with ’BMJ Publishing Group'. This only affected the full text version, not the PDF. We have since corrected these errors and the correct publishers have been inserted into the references.