Artificial insemination with donor cryopreserved semen: importance of the volume of semen and influence of ovulatory dysfunctions.

The study deals with a program for artificial insemination by means of cryopreserved donor sperm, conducted at AIED (Italian Association for Demographic Education) in Rome from 1983 to 1986. Two groups of women, both having an average age of 30, and with an equal proportion of women with factors of reduced fertility, were inseminated with a different volume of cryopreserved sperm: a) 100 women were inseminated with an average number of 6.3 straws per cycle (total number of cycles 297) and 55 pregnancies were obtained (pregnancy rate = 0.185 per cycle); b) 100 women were inseminated with a lower average number of straws; 4.1 per cycle (total number of cycles 297); in this group 23 pregnancies were obtained (pregnancy rate = 0.077 per cycle). The quality of the semen, the methods for pinpointing ovulation and for depositing seminal liquid in the female genital tract were the same for the two groups. The difference between the pregnancy rate of the two groups was statistically significant (p less than 0.0001). Altogether, 50 women with ovulatory dysfunctions underwent ovulation stimulation and among these 20 conceptions were recorded. These conceptions were obtained with 47 cycles of application (average number of cycles preceding conception cycle 1.35). This value proved to be higher than that for women not undergoing stimulation (1.10). Nevertheless, the difference was not found to be statistically significant even if considered separately for the two groups treated with different volumes of semen.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)