Characteristics of cryopreserved semen from men with lymphoma

Purpose: This study compared the pretreatment semen quality in patients with Hodgkin's disease and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma with a group of healthy donors. We also examined rite differences in prefreeze and postthaw semen quality among the different stages of Hodgkin's disease. Methods: The study included 89 patients with Hodgkin's disease, 18 with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and 50 healthy sperm donors. Results: In patients with Hodgkin's disease, the prefreeze and postthaw semen characteristics were significantly lower than those of the healthy donors. Similar results also were seen in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. No significant differences in the prefreeze semen quality were seen in patients with different stages of cancer. Conclusion: Patients with Hodgkin's disease and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in our study had poor semen quality when compared with healthy donors both before and after cryo-preservation. As cancer therapy significantly impairs reproductive potential, sperm banking should be offered to these men before the start of their therapy.