Lead exposure and semen quality among traffic police in Arequipa, Peru

This study examined lead exposure (n = 43) and semen quality (n = 18) among traffic police officers in Arequipa, Peru, where leaded gasoline is used. Blood lead (PbB) was measured using atomic absorption spectrophotometry, and semen was analyzed following World Health Organization (WHO) protocol. Mean PbB was 48.5 μg/dL. Although current PbB was associated with declines in several semen parameters (sperm morphology, concentration and total number of sperm), only sperm motility and viability differed significantly between the ≤ 40 pg/dL and > 40 pg/dL categories, and decreased with increasing PbB in simple linear regression. Traffic police are an indicator group for excessive ambient lead exposure, and these results support earlier findings on the male reproductive toxicity of lead. The results should be interpreted cautiously since the numbers were small and the analysis was unable to control for all potential confounders due to incomplete data.