Characteristics of cryopreserved semen from men with lymphoma.
OBJECTIVE
This study compared the pretreatment semen quality in patients with Hodgkin's disease and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma with a group of healthy donors. We also examined the differences in prefreeze and postthaw semen quality among the different stages of Hodgkin's disease.


METHODS
The study included 89 patients with Hodgkin's disease, 18 with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and 50 healthy sperm donors.


RESULTS
In patients with Hodgkin's disease, the prefreeze and postthaw semen characteristics were significantly lower than those of the healthy donors. Similar results also were seen in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. No significant differences in the prefreeze semen quality were seen in patients with different stages of cancer.


CONCLUSIONS
Patients with Hodgkin's disease and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in our study had poor semen quality when compared with healthy donors both before and after cryopreservation. As cancer therapy significantly impairs reproductive potential, sperm banking should be offered to these men before the start of their therapy.
Hallak
J
J
Department of Urology, University of Sao Paulo Medical School, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Mahran
A M
AM
Agarwal
A
A
D000328:Adult; D015925:Cryopreservation; D006689:Hodgkin Disease / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D008228:Lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D012661:Semen / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology; D012662:Semen Preservation; D013076:Sperm Count; D013081:Sperm Motility; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric