ArticleCureus2025
Immunoendocrine Insights Into Dehydroepiandrosterone by Cytokine Profiling in Sub-fertile Women Undergoing Intrauterine Insemination.
Article in Cureus, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundImmunological and hormonal problems, notably changes in cytokine levels, are now being closely linked to sub-fertility. This study aimed to assess how sub-fertile women respond to intrauterine insemination (IUI) after dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) treatment and compare them to healthy fertile women in terms of cytokine profiles.
methodsA total of 90 participants took part in the cross-sectional study: 60 sub-fertile women taking DHEA (25 mg thrice daily for eight weeks) and 30 healthy fertile controls. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to determine the amounts of interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), and interleukin-10 (IL-10) present in the serum samples. Data was analyzed with the help of Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY). A comparison of cytokine levels was made using an independent t-test, with p < 0.05 considered significant.
resultsMean IL-6 values in sub-fertile women (12.8 ± 4.1 pg/mL) were substantially higher than in the control group (7.2 ± 2.5 pg/mL) (p = 0.001). Patients in the study had TNF-α levels of 18.5 ± 5.3 pg/mL, higher than the control group with 11.7 ± 3.8 pg/mL (p = 0.003). Our results showed that interleukin-10 (IL-10) was significantly lower in the sub-fertile group (6.4 ± 2.2 pg/mL) than in the control group (10.1 ± 2.9 pg/mL) (p = 0.002). The findings revealed that sub-fertile women continue to show a pro-inflammatory response in their immune system.
conclusionSub-fertile women on DHEA and treated with IUI had higher levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines and lower levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines than did healthy controls. The results suggested that certain immunological responses could help, and more research was needed to learn how cytokines influence fertility management.
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