[Efficiency of conventional glass wool and SpermFertil columns with respect to ROS-reduction, leukocyte reduction, and CASA-generated sperm counts in semen].

OBJECTIVE

Glass wool filtration has proved to be useful to separate motile from defective spermatozoa and leukocytes in semen from patients with oligozoospermia and azoospermia. With regard to that, we set out to investigate the efficiency of two widely used filter systems.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Semen from 10 patients attending the Dept. of Andrology, FSU Jena, were investigated with home-made coarse glass wool filters and SpermFertil columns regarding elimination of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and enrichment of semen with motile and progressive spermatozoa.

RESULTS

Filtration with home-made glass wool columns did not affect the percentage of motile spermatozoa but increased that of progressive spermatozoa. The whole cell count was decreased by a third. Leukocytes were reduced by half and ROS by more than half. SpermFertil columns increased the percentage of both motile and progressive spermatozoa and the whole cell count was decreased severely. Leukocytes were eliminated almost completely, as were ROS.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results show the higher potential of SpermFertil columns to enrich semen specimens with motile and progressive spermatozoa and to almost completely eliminate leukocytes and ROS in comparison to home-made glass wool columns. However, SpermFertil columns reduce the whole cell count to about 10% of the original cell count.