Abstract: The male contraceptives can be mainly divided into three kinds: hormonal, non-hormonal and male contraceptive vaccines. Hormonal contraceptives have been developed through longtime pharmacological experiments and some clinical trials, including androgen alone, synthetic androgen, and the combination of androgen and progesterone, etc. The targets of those non-hormonal methods were spermatogenesis, sperm motility, non-germinal cells including Leydig cells and Sertoli cells. With the characteristic of target′s specificity, those non-hormonal methods can work with the rapid onset and the low side effects. However, they are still in the stage of preclinical study. Discovery of more targets will bring new hope for the development of male contraceptives.

Key words: Contraceptive agents, male, Spermatozoa, Vaccines, contraceptive