ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: To investigate sperm quality before and after swim up in infertile patients, and to compare it with a fertile men population. METHODS: Semen samples from 55 patients consulting at the infertility services of the Hospitals "Centenario" in Rosario and "Eva Perón" in Gro Baigorria were collected and analyzed accordingly with the WHO guidelines. 30 sperm samples with a volume higher than 1.0 ml, and spermatozoid concentration higher than 5,000,000/ml, not presenting hyperviscosity were selected. Outcome variables including progressive mobility (PM), morphology (M), chromatin condensation (CC) and chromatin integrity (CIl, were compared in fresh semen samples, between patients without previous treatment (G2) and after swim up (G3) and 15 fertile men (G1). Sperm morphology was evaluated by brilliant green hematoxyllin stain; progressive mobility with a subjective method accordingly to WHO (1999); chromatin condensation with aniline blue test; and chromatin integrity with acridine orange as fluorocrom. Swim up technique was based on Berger et al. ( 1985) with mHTF, heatingthe samples in a Falcon tube in a 45 degree angle in a 37 degree C gas heater for one hour (5% CO2 atmosphere). Following incubation 0.5 ml of the overlay containing sperm cells that swam up from the pellet were removed to process the recovered spermatozoids. Student's t test was applied to compare PM, M, CC, and CI between the four groups. A significant difference was found between G1 vs G3 and G2 vs G3 (p < 0.001). No significant differences were found between G1 and G3 (p > 0.1). It showed that PM, M, CC and C1 parameters in the recovered spermatozoids after swim up were similar to fertile population. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that through the swim up procedure gametes with fertile ability similar to normal fertile population can be recovered to be applied in low complexity in vitro fertilization techniques such as intrauterine insemination, where the natural selection is still viable.
Subject(s)
Fertilization , Infertility, Male , Spermatozoa/physiology , Humans , MaleABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: Our purpose was to study, in semen samples of infertile patients, the relationship between the Modified Sperm Stress Test (MOST) and the presence of antisperm antibodies (ASA), macrophages concentration and the Hypoosmotic Swelling Test (HOST). METHODS: Semen samples from 42 men undergoing evaluation for infertility were examined according to WHO criteria. Twenty-five of them, whithout clumping non hyperviscosity, were selected. The MOST test was applied according to the author's original technique. ASA were determined with a direct mixed agglutination test, TAC II, developed and validate by our group. Macrophage concentration was evaluated with Neutral Red stain, and functional integrity of the sperm membrane with the Hypoosmotic Swelling Test using an hypoosmotic solution of 150 mOm/ml composed of equal parts of fructose and sodium citrate. RESULTS: The Chi square test was applied to the observational data obtaining the following results: There was a statistically significant association between the presence of ASA and altered MOST (p<0.001). In all samples with ASA, abnormal MOST values were obtained (MOST<0.39). Besides, there is a statistically significant association exists between the increased concentration of macrophages and abnormal MOST (p<0.01); and altered HOST was positively correlated with abnormal MOST (p<0.02). CONCLUSION: Results clearly demonstrate the high predictive power of MOST like a test of sperm resistance to the forced lipoperoxidation, offering conditions to become a good predictor of sperm performance. Understanding the sperm resistance to the ROS and their harmfull effects on the sperm functions, a proportion of infertile men can be succesfully treated.
