A wearable skin sensor patch combined with artificial intelligence can monitor reproductive hormones over time to detect subtle fluctuations that might be contributing to patients’ fertility problems, two new studies show.
Men and women who appear hormonally normal may still have undetected disruptions in the timing and coordination of their reproductive hormones that could impair fertility, researchers said at the 28th European Congress of Endocrinology in Prague.
Hormone levels follow a circadian rhythm, rising and falling in regulated patterns throughout the day, they explained.
The developers of the patch had 102 men with or without infertility or symptoms related to sex hormone disturbances wear the patch for four days so that their testosterone levels could be measured every 15 minutes. All had normal testosterone levels on standard laboratory tests.
The men with symptoms had significantly disrupted testosterone rhythms, and the unmasked rhythm abnormalities were associated with reduced sperm concentration and symptoms of androgen deficiency, according to the researchers.
“For the first time, we have been able to track androgen patterns in real time over several days with a novel, non-invasive continuous AI-driven testosterone monitoring patch, compatible with Android and iPhone mobile devices,” study leader Dr. Tinatin Kutchukhidze from Oxford University and New Anglia University said in a statement.
“Previous research suggests that a normal morning testosterone level is sufficient to exclude clinically significant androgen deficiency," Kutchukhidze said. "However, our findings challenge that assumption by demonstrating that men with normal serum testosterone may still exhibit marked disturbances in hormonal rhythmicity associated with reproductive dysfunction."
In a separate study presented at the conference, Kutchukhidze’s team tracked 312 women with regular menstrual cycles who were fertile or had unexplained infertility.
With the AI-supported patch, they were able to identify fluctuations in hormone levels that predicted infertility, even in women with normal hormone levels on standard tests.
“A woman may have a seemingly healthy menstrual cycle and normal hormone levels but still experience hidden endocrine dysfunction that affects her ability to conceive,” said Kutchukhidze.
“Our AI-driven rhythm analyses were significantly better at identifying subclinical reproductive dysfunction than conventional testing, suggesting that both female and male endocrine disorders may not simply be disorders of hormone quantity, but rather disorders of hormonal timing, synchronization and biological rhythm,” said Kutchukhidze.
