Hematotesticular barrier is altered from early stages of liver cirrhosis: Effect of insulin-like growth factor 1

Table 1 Body mass and parameters of testicular size and weight in the three experimental groups (d 15)

	Healthy control rats (CO, n = 12)	Untreated cirrhotic rats (CI, n = 12)	Cirrhotic rats treated with IGF-1 (CI + IGF, n = 12)
Body mass (g)	545.0 ± 1.0	460.0 ± 1.0d	458.0 ± 9.0d
Right testis (g)	2.0 ± 0.0	1.6 ± 0.1d	1.7 ± 0.1d
(× 100 g/bm)	(0.4 ± 0.0)	(0.3 ± 0.0)	(0.4 ± 0.0)
External testicular diameters (mm)
• Longitudina	20.4 ± 0.26	18.56 ± 0.22d	18.37 ± 0.34d
• Transversal	10.3 ± 0.24	9.41 ± 0.23b	9.64 ± 0.14a

^aP < 0.05;

^bP < 0.01;

^dP < 0.001 vs CO group.

Table 2 Cellular analysis: Thirty seminiferous tubuli were examined in each preparation. The table summarizes the number of tubuli in each category: category I, only Sertoli s cells; category II, I + spermatids; category III, II + spermatocytes; category IV, all types of cells but with some alterations; category V, all types of cells with normal features

Category	I	II	III	IV	V
Controls (CO) (n = 10) × 30 tubuli	0	0	0	2	298
Untreated cirrhotic rats (CI) (n = 10) × 30 tubuli	0	0	5	20	275
IGF-treated cirrhotic rats (CI + IGF) (n = 10) × 30 tubuli	0	0	0	8	292
Statistical analysis (P)	ns	ns	ns	aP < 0.05	ns

^aP < 0.05, CI vs CO group.

Table 3 The pituitary-gonadal axis (on d 15) in the three experimental groups

	Healthy control rats (CO, n = 12)	Untreated cirrhotic rats (CI, n = 12)	IGF-1-treated cirrhotic rats (CI + IGF, n = 12)
Total testosterone (ng/dL)	62 ± 13	77 ± 17	64 ± 7
Free testosterone (pg/mL)	0.36 ± 0.09	0.36 ± 0.10	0.41 ± 0.05
Estradiol (pg/mL)	31 ± 2	33 ± 2	29 ± 1
Estradiol/Total testosterone	0.5 ± 0.1	0.5 ± 0.1	0.6 ± 0.1
LH (ng/mL)	4.8 ± 0.6	6.0 ± 0.5	3.8 ± 0.7d
FSH (ng/mL)	22 ± 8	27 ± 1f	26 ± 4b

^bP < 0.01 CI + IGF vs CO group;

^dP < 0.01 CI + IGF vs CI group;

^fP < 0.001 CI vs CO group.