A test for the practical evaluation of male fertility by acridine orange (AO) fluorescence

• Published in: Fertility and sterility Vol. 42; no. 1; p. 87
• Main Authors: Tejada, R I, Mitchell, J C, Norman, A, Marik, J J, Friedman, S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01-07-1984
• Subjects: Acridine Orange; Humans; Infertility, Male - diagnosis; Infertility, Male - pathology; Infertility, Male - physiopathology; Male; Microscopy, Fluorescence; Sperm Count; Sperm Head - pathology; Spermatozoa - pathology
• ISSN: 0015-0282
• DOI: 10.1016/S0015-0282(16)47963-X

A new and practical test for evaluating the fertility of a male subject has been developed. Twenty-eight donors whose semen had induced at least one pregnancy resulting in a normal delivery and 61 patients attending our infertility clinic were studied. Semen smears stained with acridine orange were read on a fluorescence microscope; sperm heads appeared either green (fertile) or red ( nonfertile ). We introduce the concept of an "effective sperm count" which is obtained by multiplying the percentage of green-fluorescing sperm by the actual sperm count. Of our fertile subjects, 27 of 28 (96.4%) exhibited an effective sperm count of greater than or equal to 50 million/ml, while 60 of 61 (98.3%) infertile patients fell below this value. The percent green correlates with neither actual sperm count nor motility, indicating that this test measures a new parameter of male fertility.