Epidemiological Profile of Male Infertility in Two Hospitals of Douala: A Cross-Sectional Study in a Sub-Saharan Africa Setting

Abstract

Background: Male infertility is defined as a lack of pregnancy for a couple after 12 months of regular and normal sexual intercourse without contraception with the cause being clearly from the male origin. Contrary to popular belief, the prevalence of male infertility is similar to that of female infertility and sometimes even higher. However, data on the subject in Cameron are scarce and nonexistent in the city of Douala. This motivated the realization of this study in two centers in the city of Douala. The objective was to describe the epidemiological profile of male infertility. Methods: We conducted a crosssectional study among patients who consulted for infertility in two hospital centers in Douala from January 2014 to October 2019. A consecutive sample of all eligible cases was considered for this study. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS Inc, Chicago, Illinois, USA) V. 20.0 and EPI-INFO V. 3.5 software. Analyzed variables included sociodemographic data (age, marital status, educational level, profession, region, alcohol, smoking habit and mean infertility duration) and other causes of infertility (obesity, history of testes infection, STI, testes traumatism, varicocele or varicocele surgery, herniorrhaphy, genetic or malformative disease). Results: We included 137 patients' records. The frequency of male infertility for patients consulting in urology was 5.6%. Their average age was 35.4±7.4 years. The average number of sexual intercourses per week was 2.7±0.97. Those patients were mainly from an intellectual profession (40.2%), married (71.5%) with a higher education level (67.2%). Almost 60% of the studied population had alcohol consumption. Primary infertility accounted for 65.7% of the study population and the average duration of infertility was 5.9±5.3 years. The main factors for infertility were respectively history of sexually transmitted infections (STI) in 59 (43.1%) and childhood mumps in 42 (32.7%) cases. Furthermore, herniorrhaphy (16.1%) and varicocelectomy (10.9%) were the most representative surgical background. Conclusion: Male infertility is not uncommon in urological consultation with primary infertility been more frequent. Risk factors of infertility in our setting included a history of STI, mumps, and surgery.