Abstract
This is an attempt to establish the normal stretched penile length and prevalence of male genital anomalies in full-term neonates and whether they are influenced by prenatal parental exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals. A thousand newborns were included; their mothers were subjected to the following questionnaire: parents’ age, residence, occupation, contact with insecticides and pesticides, antenatal exposure to cigarette smoke or drugs, family history of genital anomalies, phytoestrogens intake and history of in vitro fertilization or infertility. Free testosterone was measured in 150 neonates in the first day of life. Mean penile length was 3.4±0.37 cm. A penile length <2.5 cm was considered micropenis. Prevalence of genital anomalies was 1.8% (hypospadias 83.33%). There was a higher rate of anomalies in those exposed to endocrine disruptors (EDs; 7.4%) than in the non-exposed (1.2%; p<0.0001; odds ratio 6, 95% confidence interval 2–16). Mean penile length showed a linear relationship with free testosterone and was lower in neonates exposed to EDs.
References
1. Aaronson IA. Micropenis: medical and surgical implications. J Urol 1994;152:4–14.Search in Google Scholar
2. Gabrich PN, Vasconcelos JS, Damião R, Silva EA. Penile anthropometry in Brazilian children and adolescents. J Pediatr (Rio J) 2007;83:441–6.Search in Google Scholar
3. Sultan C, Balaguer P, Terouanne B, Georget V, Paris F, et al. Environmental xenoestrogens, antiandrogens and disorders of male sexual differentiation. Mol Cell Endocrinol 2001;10:178: 99–105.Search in Google Scholar
4. Sharpe RM, Skakkebæk NE. Are oestrogens involved in falling sperm counts and disorders of the male reproductive tract? Lancet 1993;341:1392–5.Search in Google Scholar
5. Acerini CL, Hughes IA. Endocrine disrupting chemicals: a new and emerging public health problem? Arch Dis Child 2006;91: 633–41.Search in Google Scholar
6. Joensen UN, Jørgensen N, Rajpert-De Meyts E, Skakkebaek NE. Testicular dysgenesis syndrome and Leydig cell function. Basic Clin Pharmacol Toxicol 2008;102:155–61.Search in Google Scholar
7. IEH. Chemicals purported to be endocrine disruptors: a compilation of published lists. (Web Report W20), Leicester, UK: MRC Institute for Environmental Health, 2005. Accessed on March 2005. Available at http://www.le.ac.uk/ieh/.Search in Google Scholar
8. Cheng PK, Chanoine JP. Should the definition of micropenis vary according to ethnicity? Horm Res 2001;55:278–81.Search in Google Scholar
9. Scorer CG. The incidence of incomplete descent of the testicle at birth. Arch Dis Child 1956;31:198–202.Search in Google Scholar
10. Daniel WW. Biostatistics: a foundation for analysis in the health sciences, 6th ed. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1995.Search in Google Scholar
11. Flatau E, Josefsberg Z, Reisner SH, Bialik O, Iaron Z. Letter: penile size in the newborn infants. J Pediatr 1975;87:663–4.Search in Google Scholar
12. Ozbey H, Temiz A, Salman T. A simple method for measuring penile length in newborn and infants. BJU Int 1999;84:1093–4.Search in Google Scholar
13. Al-Herbish AS. Standard penile size for normal full term newborns in the Saudi population. Saudi Med J 2002;23:314–6.Search in Google Scholar
14. Lian WB, Lee WR, Ho LY. Penile length of newborns in Singapore. J Pediatr Endocrinol Metab 2000;13:55–62.Search in Google Scholar
15. Vasudevan G, Manivarmane B, Bhat BV, Bhatia BD, Kumar S. Genital standards for south Indian male newborns. Indian J Pediatr 1995;62:593–6.Search in Google Scholar
16. Boas M, Boisen KA, Virtanen HE, Kaleva M, Suomi AM, et al. Postnatal penile length and growth rate correlate to serum testosterone levels: a longitudinal study of 1962 normal boys. Eur J Endocrinol 2006;154:125–9.Search in Google Scholar
17. Camurdan AD, Oz MO, Ilhan MN, Camurdan OM, Sahin F, et al. Current stretched penile length: cross-sectional study of 1040 healthy Turkish children aged 0 to 5 years. Urology 2007;70:572–5.Search in Google Scholar
18. Bay K, Asklund C, Skakkebaek NE, Andersson AM. Testicular dysgenesis syndrome: possible role of endocrine disruptors. Best Pract Res Clin Endocrinol Metab 2006;20:77–90.Search in Google Scholar
19. Czeizel A. Increasing trends in congenital malformations of male external genitalia. Lancet 1985;i:462–3.Search in Google Scholar
20. Matlai P, Beral V. Trends in congenital malformations of external genitalia. Lancet 1985;i:108.Search in Google Scholar
21. Källén B, Bertollini R, Castilla E, Czeizel A, Knudsen LB, et al. A joint international study on the epidemiology of hypospadias. Acta Paediatr Scand 1986;324(Suppl):1–52.Search in Google Scholar
22. Paulozzi LJ, Erickson JD, Jackson RJ. Hypospadias trends in two US surveillance systems. Pediatrics 1997;100:831–4.Search in Google Scholar
23. Paulozzi LJ. International trends in rates of hypospadias and cryptorchidism. Environ Health Perspect 1999;107: 297–302.Search in Google Scholar
24. EUROCAT Working Group. EUROCAT report 7. 15 years of surveillance of congenital anomalies in Europe 1980–1994.Brussels, Belgium: Scientific Institute of Public Health-Louis Pasteur, 1997.Search in Google Scholar
25. Toppari J, Kaleva M, Virtanen HE. Trends in the incidence of cryptorchidism and hypospadias, and methodological limitations of registry-based data. Hum Reprod Update 2001;7:282–6.Search in Google Scholar
26. Nassar N, Bower C, Barker A. Increasing prevalence of hypospadias in Western Australia, 1980–2000. Arch Dis Child 2007;92:580–4.Search in Google Scholar
27. Wang MH, Baskin LS. Endocrine disruptors, genital development, and hypospadias. J Androl 2008;29:499–505.Search in Google Scholar
28. Morales-Suárez-Varela MM, Toft GV, Jensen MS, Ramlau-Hansen C, Linda Kaerlev L, et al. Parental occupational exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals and male genital malformations: a study in the Danish National Birth Cohort Study. Environ Health 2011;10:3.Search in Google Scholar
29. Gaspari L, Sampaio DR, Paris F, Audran F, Orsini M, et al. High prevalence of micropenis in 2710 male newborns from an intensive-use pesticide area of Northeastern Brazil. Int J Androl 2012;35:253–64.Search in Google Scholar
©2013 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
