Impact of cryopreservation on spermatozoa from infertile men: implications for artificial insemination.
The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of cryopreservation-thawing on the quality of sperm from men with subfertile semen parameters. Twenty-seven patients with teratozoospermia, six of whom also had asthenozoospermia, were studied and their sperm parameters were compared to those of fertile donors (n = 71) in their fresh, post-thaw, and washed samples. After thawing, the percentage decrease in motility was significantly greater in patients than in donors, but the motility yield (post-thaw motility/prethaw motility) reached an average of 58% in the patient group vs. 68% in the donors (p = .02). No single characteristic of the fresh samples from patients or donors could significantly predict post-thaw outcome. For the patient group, however, multiple regression analysis provided a cutoff sperm concentration (50 x 10(6)/mL) and motility (40%) below which a very poor post-thaw recovery was obtained. The frozen-thawed-washed specimens had significantly higher velocity than the frozen-thawed samples, both in patients and donors. The results suggest that some patients with teratoasthenozoospermia yield acceptable sperm parameters after freezing-thawing-washing, and therefore these ejaculates could be used individually (or pooled) in artificial insemination.
Howard and Georgeanna Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk.
H
H
Mossad
M
M
Morshedi
J P
JP
Toner
S
S
Oehninger
D015925:Cryopreservation; D006801:Humans; D007248:Infertility, Male; D007315:Insemination, Artificial; D008297:Male; D012016:Reference Values; D012661:Semen / Q000502:physiology; D012662:Semen Preservation; D013081:Sperm Motility; D013094:Spermatozoa / Q000166:cytology / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology*