Early Changes in Androgen Levels in Individuals with Spinal Cord Injury: A Longitudinal SwiSCI Study.

Itodo, Oche Adam; Raguindin, Peter Francis; Wöllner, Jens; Eriks-Hoogland, Inge; Jordan, Xavier; Hund-Georgiadis, Margret; Muka, Taulant; Pannek, Jürgen; Stoyanov, Jivko; Glisic, Marija (2022). Early Changes in Androgen Levels in Individuals with Spinal Cord Injury: A Longitudinal SwiSCI Study. Journal of clinical medicine, 11(21), p. 6559. MDPI 10.3390/jcm11216559

Preview

Text jcm-11-06559-v2.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons: Attribution (CC-BY). Download (652kB) | Preview

We aimed to explore longitudinal changes in androgen levels in individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) within initial inpatient rehabilitation stay and identify clinical/injury characteristics associated with hormone levels. Linear regression analysis was applied to explore the association between personal/injury characteristics and androgen hormones (total testosterone, free testosterone, sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEA-S)) at admission to rehabilitation. Longitudinal changes in androgen levels were studied using linear mixed models. Analyses were stratified by sex and by injury type. We included 70 men and 16 women with SCI. We observed a non-linear association between age, time since injury, and androgens at baseline. At admission to initial rehabilitation, mature serum SHBG (full-length, protein form which lacks the N-terminal signaling peptide) was higher, while DHEA and DHEA-S were lower among opioid users vs. non-users. Serum levels of total testosterone and DHEA-S increased over rehabilitation period [β 3.96 (95%CI 1.37, 6.56), p = 0.003] and [β 1.77 (95%CI 0.73, 2.81), p = 0.01], respectively. We observed no significant changes in other androgens. Restricting our analysis to men with traumatic injury did not materially change our findings. During first inpatient rehabilitation over a median follow up of 5.6 months, we observed an increase in total testosterone and DHEA-S in men with SCI. Future studies need to explore whether these hormonal changes influence neurological and functional recovery as well as metabolic parameters during initial rehabilitation stay.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

78 since deposited on 16 Nov 2022
46 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item