Male genital damage in COVID-19 patients: Are available data relevant?

Youssef, Kharbach; Abdelhak, Khallouk

Over the past few weeks, we have observed increasing concern about the possible impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) which is caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) on male fertility. Precise mechanisms of male reproductive damages are still unclear, but it seems that high temperature resulting from persistent fever and triggering a secondary autoimmune response leading to an autoimmune orchitis are the most likely involved mechanisms. Also, angiotensin conversion enzyme 2 (ACE2) plays a highly important role in cellular entry for SARS-CoV-2 and male genital system presents high ACE2 expression. All these preliminary findings suggest that COVID-19 could impact men's reproductive health. Thus, we examined available data including published and unpublished articles to assess the potential risk of COVID-19 in particular on the male reproductive system.