Conference Reveals Promising Options for Male Contraception

The wave of the future may be closer than you think, at least where contraception is concerned. Researchers at the "Future of Male Contraception" unveiled promising new methods Friday that may have men kicking the condom to the curb.

While traditionally men have had limited options in contraception, the findings presented at the conference, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, suggest that may change in the near future. Researchers from Columbia University, the University of Washington, and Shepherd Medical Company presented a variety of methods, each with encouraging findings.

Columbia researchers offered a drug that uses vitamin A's role in fertility as a means of contraception. Avoiding vitamin A alone would cause men to lose fertility, but it also causes illness. Luckily, Dr. Debra Wolgemoth and her team discovered a previously abandoned drug that interferes with vitamin A receptors in the testes. This feature, which caused a pharmaceutical company to shun the drug initially, makes it effective in the fight against fertility.

Lab tests in mice were successful and caused no harmful side effects. Based on this data and earlier findings, Dr. Wolgemoth expressed confidence in the future of the drug. "The testis is extremely sensitive to the drug," she said. "We're optimistic that there would be no adverse side effects in humans as well."

The method presented by University of Washington researchers also took advantage of existing drugs to provide a new solution. Their efforts combined a shot of DepoProvera, a female contraceptive, with a topical testosterone gel. Experiment participants were given a shot every three months and rubbed on the gel daily. The results were quite impressive, as sperm was knocked out effectively in 90 percent of the men. However, the inconvenience of the treatment may harm its viability.