Research advances of barrier methods and pharmaceutical intervention methods in male contraception

Male contraceptive methods can be divided into barrier methods, pharmaceutical intervention methods and the other. Barrier methods include condoms, vasoligation, reversible inhibition sperm under guidance (RISUG) and Vasalgel, etc. Pharmaceutical intervention methods can be further classified as hormonal and non-hormonal male contraceptive. Hormone-based male contraceptives based on negative feedback regulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis affect spermatogenesis for contraceptive purposes. Development of non-hormonal male contraceptive is a trend because of the advantages of high specificity, hypotoxicity and reversibility. In addition, there are some contraceptive researches by the use of radiation, microwaves, nanomaterials, and high-temperature sealing. Herein we focus on a systematic review of barrier methods and pharmaceutical intervention methods. Key words: Contraceptive method; Barriers methods; Hormonal contraceptive; Nonhormonal contraceptive; Target