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Review
. 2018 Mar;61(2):179-191.
doi: 10.5468/ogs.2018.61.2.179. Epub 2018 Mar 5.

Clinical assessment of the male fertility

Amena Khatun  1 , Md Saidur Rahman  1 , Myung-Geol Pang  1
Affiliations
Review

Clinical assessment of the male fertility

Amena Khatun et al. Obstet Gynecol Sci. 2018 Mar.

Abstract

The evaluation of infertility in males consists of physical examination and semen analyses. Standardized semen analyses depend on the descriptive analysis of sperm motility, morphology, and concentration, with a threshold level that must be surpassed to be considered a fertile spermatozoon. Nonetheless, these conventional parameters are not satisfactory for clinicians since 25% of infertility cases worldwide remain unexplained. Therefore, newer tests methods have been established to investigate sperm physiology and functions by monitoring characteristics such as motility, capacitation, the acrosome reaction, reactive oxygen species, sperm DNA damage, chromatin structure, zona pellucida binding, and sperm-oocyte fusion. After the introduction of intracytoplasmic sperm injection technique, sperm maturity, morphology, and aneuploidy conditions have gotten more attention for investigating unexplained male infertility. In the present article, recent advancements in research regarding the utilization of male fertility prediction tests and their role and accuracy are reviewed.

Keywords: Infertility; Semen analysis; Spermatozoa.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Effects of sperm treatment based on TEST-yolk buffer (TYB), Biggers-Whitten-Whittingham (BWW), and human serum albumin (HSA) on the outcome of the sperm penetration assay (SPA). (A) Effect of TYB and BWW on the outcome of SPA tests. (B) Human serum albumin concentrations in fertilization media. (C) Human serum albumin concentration in swim up method. The figure has been modified, and citing the original source published by Oh et al. [59]. PI, penetration index; PR, plasticity range.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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