Prostate-specific antigen concentration in vaginal fluid after exposure to semen☆

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Contraception
• Personal Author:
  Kulczycki, Andrzej ; Brill, Ilene ; Snead, Margaret Christine ; Macaluso, Maurizio
• Description:
  Objective ; Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is the best established biomarker of semen exposure. PSA in vaginal fluid returns to pre-exposure concentrations within 24–48 h, but the speed of decay during the first 10 h is unknown. We sought to determine how fast PSA concentrations decline during the first 10 h after exposure to semen. ; Study design ; Women in the 50 enrolled couples were intravaginally inoculated with 10, 20, 100 and 200 µl of their partner's semen and then collected vaginal swabs immediately after, 30 min, 4 h and 10 h after exposure. Forty-seven sets of samples were tested for PSA. Mixed linear models for repeated measures examined the association between log-transformed PSA values and sampling time and semen exposure volume. Sensitivity analyses excluded data from nonabstainers. Fixed-effect estimates from the statistical models were graphed. ; Results ; PSA values were highest at 200 µl inoculation volumes and at earlier post-exposure time points, then decline steadily. The lowest inoculation volume (10 µl) corresponded to the smallest concentration of PSA throughout the post-inoculation time points. Average PSA levels return to clinically non-detectable levels within 10 h only at the lowest semen exposures. The PSA decay curve assumes a very similar profile across all time points and semen amounts. ; Conclusions ; The PSA decay curve is similar for varying semen exposure volumes, with average PSA concentrations remaining above clinical thresholds 10 h after exposure at all except the very smallest semen exposure levels. PSA is an objective marker of recent exposure to semen, permitting such detection with high accuracy. ; Implications ; This study clarifies how PSA values vary at different semen exposure levels and time points during the first 10 h post-exposure. Future contraceptive studies that use PSA as a semen biomarker will be better informed about PSA concentrations at different sampling times and exposure amounts.
• Subjects:
  • Adult
  • Biomarkers
  • Family Characteristics
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Kinetics
  • Limit of Detection
  • Male
  • Models, Biological*
  • Prostate-Specific Antigen
  More +
• Source:
  Contraception. 96(5):336-343.
• Pubmed ID:
  28711645
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC5737557
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  CC999999/Intramural CDC HHS/United States
• Volume:
  96
• Issue:
  5
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/50588/cdc_50588_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.37 MB]
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:6d607c7f71e4301d5f8c1b528152f439a85a41d0f2dd844cc222f6b7a486307e