Male Contraception: A Review of Current Methods and Developments

Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW 1
Male contraception
Student’s name
Institutional Affiliation

LITERATURE REVIEW 2
Introduction
Male contraceptives also referred to as male birth control are ways of averting pregnancy
that mainly manipulates the male physiology. The commonly used kind of male contraception
includes vasectomy, the withdrawal method, and condoms which are not suitable for all men.
This is because the majority of the men find using a condom cumbersome while vasectomy
requires surgery that is irreversible and the pullout method is not efficient enough to control
pregnancy (Roth & Amory, 2016). Although contraceptives are mostly associated with women
and are useful in ensuring that there are no unwanted pregnancies, some women are unable to
use them due to adverse health effects and health conditions leaving them with no effective
contraception methods. Also, the majority of the men desire to take responsibility for family
planning. This explains why there is a great need for the invention of male contraceptives
(Amory, 2016).
Although men want the invention of more birth control options, it has taken too long to
get them. A lot of reasons have been given concerning the long time that has been taken to come
up with male contraceptives. Men have partly been blamed for this and the fact that most women
continue to bear the burden of using birth control methods. In late 2016, a huge clinical trial of a
male hormonal contraceptive was stopped due to the side effects it had, and the men who
undertook in the study were accused of being too inadequate in handling the side effects that
women undergo as a result of pills every day (Antonietta, Giulia, Marta & Cristina, 2014).
It has proven very difficult to find new methods of contraception, and one of the primary
challenges is dealing with male biology. The male produces approximately 250 million sperms

LITERATURE REVIEW 3
during ejaculation while women produce one or two eggs every month making it easier to
generate female contraceptives than the male contraceptives. Another challenge is ensuring that
the birth control methods are as effective and safe as the ones used by women. This reason has
made the majority of pharmaceutical companies quit the quest to identify new male
contraceptives. Despite these problems, however, there has been some progress (Cheng & Mruk,
2013).
An estimated 80–90 million unintended pregnancies occur annually. The emergence of
new male contraception has helped solve this problem. A study undertaken by Eppin Pharma and
Oregon Health and Sciences University has identified a compound called EPO55 that has the
potential of slowing the mobility of the sperm without interfering with the hormones. The
compound works by binding to the sperm proteins and hence reducing the ability of the sperm to
swim remarkably hindering fertilization. This makes this compound ideal for the non-hormonal
male contraception method (Chao, Page & Anderson, 2014).
The study on compound EPO55 has been conducted on male rhesus macaques, a species
of monkeys indigenous to northern India. According to medical daily, the monkeys were injected
with a high-dose infusion, and after 30 hours, their sperm was unable to move. The sperms were
able to regain their motility 18 days later. It is difficult to predict the effects of the compound
since human trials have not been performed yet. The researchers are currently working on an oral
pill and have stressed on the fact that more effort is needed to ensure that they are effective in
preventing pregnancy.

LITERATURE REVIEW 4
There has been the development of a daily gel which has both progestin and testosterone.
The progestin present in the gel is meant to be injected to both the arms and shoulders daily with
the aim of reducing the level of gonadotropin hormones which stimulate the production of
testosterone in the testes. Since the production of sperms relies on high levels of testosterone in
the testes, a blocking the gonadotropins reduces the production of sperms. Lowering the
testosterone levels in the testes results in decreased levels in the blood to, and this can have
severe side effects such as problems with ejaculation and reduced libido. This explains why the
gel is substituted with testosterone to ensure that the normal functioning but hindering the
production of sperms again (Costantino, Gava, Berra & Meriggiola, 2014).
The gel can suppress the level of sperms in an estimated 90 percent of men to one million
millimeters or less which is the amount required in preventing unwanted pregnancy with fewer
side effects. The gel is undergoing the clinical trials involving 420 couples in the UK, US,
Kenya, Italy, and Chile where the couples are required to use the gel until their sperm count is
low enough. They are expected to rely on this gel for contraception for a year. If the gel is
proven effective and safe, they will move to the third phase where a large number of couples will
be used (Colagross et al., 2017).
Researchers have come up with male birth control which is still undergoing clinical
studies. The quest in coming up with the male pill has been quite challenging due to the sperm
suppressing hormone which keeps changing such that the drug induces rapidly clears the body
and hence requiring more than a once-daily dose. However, researchers are working towards
coming up with a pill that overcomes the problem. Studies from a 100-person randomized
controlled trial indicate that dimenthondrolone undecanoate also referred to as DMAU is safe