PREDICTION OF HUMAN SPERM PENETRATING ABILITY USING COMPUTERIZED MOTION PARAMETERS

The sperm penetration assay (SPA) is used to assess male fertilizing potential but it is tedious and costly. Computer analysis could replace the need for the SPA in some cases, if computerized sperm motility parameters are highly predictive of SPA performance. The objective of this study was to determine whether computerized motility parameters from fresh semen samples could be used to predict SPA performance. Computer automated semen analysis (CASA; CellSoft, Cryo Resources) was used to quantitate sperm concentration (CONC), percent motility (MOT), curvilinear velocity (VEL), linearity of swimming trajectory (LIN), mean amplitude of lateral head displacement (ALH), and beat/cross frequency (B/CF). The SPA was performed using either Biggers, Whitten, and Whittingham's medium (BWW) or TEST‐yolk buffer (TYB). Patients were divided into three groups depending on SPA performance: group 1, BWW‐treated, 0% versus > 0% penetration; group 2, TYB‐treated, 0% versus > 0% penetration; and group 3, TYB‐treated, < 20% versus ≥ 20% penetration. SPA performance was highly correlated with CONC, MOT, VEL, and B/CF. CONC, MOT, VEL, and B/CF were significantly higher for patients who penetrated in the SPA than for those who failed to penetrate. Discriminant function analysis (DFA) successfully classified 76% of all patients treated with TYB (group 2) who penetrated and 86% of nonpenetrators based on their computerized motility parameters. For group 2 DFA predicted that 93 men would penetrate in the SPA with TYB. Of these, 90 (96%) successfully penetrated at least one egg. It is concluded that DFA of computerized motility parameters can accurately predict whether a patient will penetrate (> 0%) in the TYB‐treated SPA. Copyright © 1990 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.