Introduction Previous research in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection indicates that hypogonadism is common in men with HIV infection, and may be the first or most sensitive endocrine abnormality. We examined the prevalence of hypogonadism and its association with some related factors among a group of HIV+ Patients in Shiraz-Iran.

Material and method: In this cross-sectional study, a total of 222 male HIV-positive patients referred to Shiraz voluntary counselling centre were recruited based on convenience sampling from May to October 2010. All patients provided informed consent and blood samples were collected after an overnight fast to measure free testosterone (FT) concentration, HGB, LH, FSH, and Prolactine. The body mass index (BMI) of all patients was also measured.

Results The mean age of the participants was 37.4 ± 7.4 years. Fifty four (24.32%) of the patients had developed AIDS, 180 (64%) were HCV-positive and 23 (8.3%) were HBS-positive. About 42% of participants were on MMT programme. According to the BMI, 15.1% were underweight, 7.6% were overweight, and 0.4% was obese. Based on free testosterone (FT) level, 66.8% had hypogonadism and among them 30.8% were primary and 69.1% were secondary Hypogonadism. We divided participants to Hypogonadal(n = 84) and ugonadal(n = 133) groups. Based on univariate regression analysis, the results showed that decreased FT level were associated with age, methadone use (OR = 1.74, CI: 0.97–3.1), LH (OR = 0.91CI: 0.87–0.95), HGB (OR = 0.788, CI: 0.69–0.89), BMI (OR = 0.88, CI: 0.79–0.98) and PRL(OR = 1.18(CI: 1.09–1.28) but FT had not significant association with Diabetes, Smoking, Hepatitis and being on AIDS stage.

Conclusions The prevalence of hypogonadism was high. Increasing age, high level of serum Proloctine, lower body mass index and anaemia were associated with hypogonadism. Increasing one unit of LH and HGB could have a protective effect on hypogonadism.