[Luobufukebiri Pills improve semen quality and seminal plasma-related biochemical indexes in patients with asthenospermia].

Objective: To investigate the clinical effect of Luobufukebiri Pills (LP) on asthenospermia and its action mechanism.

Methods: A total of 206 patients with asthenospermia in Henan Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine from March 2018 to December 2018 were randomly assigned to receive oral LP (the experimental group, n = 103) bid 10 pills each time or vitamin E soft capsules (the control group, n = 103) bid 100 mg each time for a course of 12 weeks. We compared the semen volume, sperm concentration, sperm motility, levels of α-glucosidase (α-Glu), fructose (Fru), malondialdehyde (MDA) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) in the seminal plasma, and the number of pregnancies between the two groups of patients before and after treatment.

Results: All the patients finished the experiment except 1 in the control group due to personal reasons. After 12 weeks of medication, the patients in the experimental group showed significant increases over the baseline in sperm concentration (［36.27 ± 11.05］ vs ［25.96 ± 8.63］ ×10⁶/ml, P < 0.05), grade a sperm (［16.92 ± 5.72］% vs ［9.34 ± 3.18］%, P < 0.05), grade a+b sperm (［36.08 ± 6.84］% vs ［19.88 ± 4.65］%, P < 0.05), total sperm motility (［50.37 ± 10.38］% vs ［24.62 ± 6.12］%, P < 0.05), and the levels of α-Glu (［46.94 ± 9.16］ vs ［32.25 ± 8.30］ U/ml, P < 0.05), Fru (［28.08 ± 5.72］ vs ［16.38 ± 4.62］ μmol/ml, P < 0.05) and SOD (［182.28 ± 18.44］ vs ［100.37 ± 10.22］ U/ml, P < 0.05), but a decrease in the content of seminal plasma MDA (［10.37 ± 2.93］ vs ［15.62 ± 4.68］ nmol/ml, P < 0.05). Increases were also observed in the control group over the baseline in grade a sperm (［12.40 ± 6.33］% vs ［9.26 ± 2.94］%, P < 0.05), grade a+b sperm (［25.42 ± 5.24］% vs ［19.43 ± 4.17］%, P < 0.05), total sperm motility (［40.22 ± 9.72］% vs ［23.99 ± 5.77］%, P < 0.05), and levels of α-Glu (［40.31 ± 8.22］ vs ［31.06 ± 7.51］ U/ml, P < 0.05) and SOD (［139.71 ± 14.08］ vs ［102.11 ± 9.24］ U/ml, P < 0.05), but a decrease in the content of seminal plasma MDA (［12.72 ± 3.11］ vs ［15.62 ± 4.68］ nmol/ml, P < 0.05). The total clinical effectiveness rate was remarkably higher in the experimental than in the control group (87.38% vs 58.82%, P < 0.05).

Conclusions: Luobufukebiri Pills are safe and effective for the treatment of asthenospermia, which may be attributed to their ability of improving oxidative stress damage.