Semen quality of smoking and non-smoking men in infertile couples in a Turkish population.

OBJECTIVE

This retrospective study was designed to reveal the effect of smoking on semen parameters in an infertile Turkish population.

PATIENTS

Two hundred and ninety-six infertile males were triaged as nonsmokers, light smokers and heavy smokers. Semen volume; sperm density, motility and morphology were the main outcome measures.

RESULTS

Rapidly progressing sperm ratio of the heavy smokers group was greater than that of the light smokers group (p<0.05). Morphologic evaluation results revealed better results for the nonsmokers than the heavy smokers in terms of tail anomalies and percent of coiled tails (p<0.05)

CONCLUSIONS

In infertile Turkish men, heavy smoking was found to have detrimental effects on tail of the spermatozoon. Interestingly, heavy smokers have a higher percent of rapidly progressive sperm with respect to light smokers. Prospective studies will help determining the definite effect of smoking on semen quality.