Male subfertility is multifactorial and entails more than the conventional sperm quality parameters

Abstract

Male subfertility accounts for 10 % of subfertility in couples looking for reproductive help. The success rates of subfertility treatments, IUI and IVF, remain to be increased through improvement in sperm quality. To define sperm quality, the conventional sperm parameters are routinely used. However, defects at the chromosome, nucleus and membrane may inefficiently or not be detected during conventional sperm quality analysis. We expect that male subfertility is multifactorial and that a conventional sperm quality analysis does not provide sufficient information to explore the fertility problem. During this project, the storage temperature of the sperm samples was optimized. The potential of the hypo-osmotic swelling test as a selection step for IUI and IVF was evaluated. Different sperm parameters were studied to enhance our understanding of male subfertility and the suboptimal successes of IUI and IVF, namely protamination status, DNA fragmentation level, acrosome reaction and viabil