Evaluating The Sperm Quality In Sub-Fertile Men Who Attended Fertility Workup – A Retrospective Study

• Published in: Reproductive biomedicine online Vol. 48; p. 104067
• Main Authors: Gowda, N.K., Meitei, H.Y., Adiga, S.K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01-05-2024
• ISSN: 1472-6483
• DOI: 10.1016/j.rbmo.2024.104067

Background & AIM: The prevalence of primary infertility in India varies from 3.9% to 16.8%, while male factor infertility contributes to nearly half of it. Numerous studies have reported that there is a time-dependent decline in human semen quality, for which regional differences have also been reported. Our earlier observations have shown a decreasing trend in semen quality from 1993 to 2005. Here, we further extended our analysis to compare the semen profile from 2006 to 2022.
Semen analysis reports of 20,000 sub-fertile men who attended Andrology laboratory at the university fertility clinic between 2006 and 2022 were included. Considering the 5th percentile reference of the WHO guideline for semen analysis, a comparison of basic sperm characteristics was performed between the groups of time periods: 2006–2010 and 2011–2022.
A significant reduction in basic sperm characteristics like total sperm number, total motility, progressive motility, viability, and normal morphology of spermatozoa was observed in normozoospermic samples, abnormal samples, and sub-cohorts of abnormal samples (asthenozoospemic, oligozoospermic, and oligoasthenozoospermic samples) during the period 2011–2022, compared to 2006–2010 (p <0.01). However, there was comparable semen volume across the period in normozoospermic samples and oligoasthenozoospermic samples.
Our study indicates that there has been a deterioration in semen quality among sub-fertile men from 2006 to 2022, which warrants further regional studies.