Antisperm Antibody in Testicular Cancer Patients

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The level of antisperm antibodies was evaluated in the serum of 47 patients with germ cell cancer ; 17 patients with testicular seminomas, 26 with non-seminomatous testicular germ cell tumors and 4 with extragonadal non-seminomatous germ cell tumors. The presence of antisperm antibodies was assessed using the indirect sperm immobilization test (Isojima's mothod) and the indirect Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay (ELISA). No patients showed a positive antisperm antibody by the sperm immobilization test, while 12 patients (25.5%) showed a positive serum titer of antisperm antibodies more than 1 : 32 by ELISA. The antibody was positive in 35.5% of the patients with testicular seminomas, 15.4% of those with non-seminomatous testicular tumors, and 50% of those with extragonadal germ cell tumors. There was no relation between the incidence of positive antisperm antibodies by ELISA and the tumor histology or the stage of the disease. The incidence of the antibody was not statistically different between the serum from the patients with the disease and those from the patients after the successful treatment. Several patients showed positive antibodies more than 3 years after treatment.Semen quality and serum FSH levels were studied to investigate the effect of the antisperm antibody on the testicular function. Semen quality was not deterirated in the antibody positive patients. Incidence of the elevated serum FSH levels in the antibody positive patients was not higher than that in the antibody negative patients.In conclusion, antisperm antibodies in the testicular cancer patients assessed using ELISA were not related to either tumor histology, stage of the disease, treatment of the disease, or the condition of the fertility. Antisperm antibodies were not useful as a tumor marker of testicular cancer.