PREDICTION OF THE SUCCESS OF IN-VITRO FERTILIZATION PROGRAMME BY ASSESSMENT OF SPERM FUNCTION AND SPERM FERTILIZATION POTENTIAL

Abstract

Approximately I 0-15% of couples trying to get pregnant fail to do so and seek medical advice. Infertility has been diagnosed as being due to male factor in 25-33% of cases, often combined with a female factor; but 15-20% of couples have otherwise unexplained or "idiopathic" infertility. Because the major part of the sperm's functional life is spent in the female reproductive tract, descriptive semen analysis cannot be expected to provide all the answers. Clear evidence exists for some idiopathic infertility being due to specific defects of sperm function. Better knowledge of these defects should permit more accurate assessment of fertility for the individual man, irrespective of the results of his semen analysis. The purpose of this study was to study different panels of sperm function tests and to evaluate their role in predicting the success rate of in vitro fertilization programme. The study was conducted on one hundred and ten couples who underwent one treatment cycle each. Patients were allocated into two groups according to the male semen characteristics; group I (standard IVF treatment) and group II (IVFIICSI treatment). For each female, induction of ovulation was carried out according to the standard protocol of RMU, LWH. For each male partner, standard semen analysis (WHO 1999), sperm motility and morphology assessment by CASA and sperm acrosomal status before and after challenging with follicular fluid were performed. The outcome measurement was in vitro fertilization rate of metaphase II oocytes. Patients' groups were classified into good and poor fertilizers based on