Exploring the preventive effect of physical activity on prostate cancer-induced testicular dysfunction

• Autor(a) principal: Matos, Bárbara Costa
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/24208
• topic: Prostate cancer; Physical activity; Testicular function; Testosterone; Spermatogenesis; Testis morphology; Vascular health

Prostate cancer (PCa) is one of the most common types of cancer in men and, in addition to impair prostate function, also affects other organs, like testis, causing testicular dysfunction. Exercise training has been associated with a beneficial effect for PCa patients, both in prevention and outcomes of the disease. In healthy subjects, exercise training can have either a beneficial or deleterious effect on testicular function, depending on the type and intensity. In addition, exercise training seems to have a benefic effect in preventing or counteracting the impairment of testis function caused by several conditions, like aging or obesity. Thus, the aim of this work was to explore the preventive effect of exercise training in PCa-induced testicular dysfunction. Fifty Wistar Unilever male rats were randomly divided into four groups: Sedentary, Sedentary+PCa, Exercised and Exercised+PCa. Fifty weeks after the first training, the animals were sacrificed and sperm, testes and serum were collected. Animals and testes weight, sperm concentration and morphology, testosterone serum levels and testis histology were analyzed and compared between groups. PCa negatively affected testis tissue causing a reduction of testis weight accompanied by decreased sperm count and morphology. PCa-induced animals also exhibited higher testis arterial thickness which, along with a negative feedback effect caused by increased serum testosterone levels may contributed to the PCa-induced impairment of testis function. Despite exercise training seemed to exacerbate PCa-induced increase testosterone serum levels, it slightly improved sperm concentration and morphology of PCa rats. Moreover, in these animals, exercise training seemed to counteract the increased in arterial thickness and consequent decreased arterial lumen Contrarily, in control rats, exercise training seemed to decrease sperm count and morphology, demonstrating a negative impact in testis. Both PCa and exercise training were not associated to testis fibrosis. In summary, PCa negatively affected testis vascular health and consequently testis function. Exercise training seemed to improve vascular health of testis tissue of tumor-bearing rats, which was reflected in a slightly improvement of testis function parameters. On the other hand, in control animals, exercise training seems to have a deleterious effect in testis tissue