Evaluation of the CellTrak computer-assisted sperm analysis system in comparison to the Cellsoft system to measure human sperm hyperactivation.

OBJECTIVE

To measure and compare sperm hyperactivation (HA) and associated motility parameters using the CellTrak (Motion Analysis Corporation, Santa Rosa, CA) and Cellsoft (Cryo Resources, New York, NY) Computer-Assisted Sperm Analysis (CASA) Systems. The accuracy of the CellTrak system also was assessed by repeated measurements of the same sample.

SETTING

A university-affiliated tertiary care center.

PATIENTS

Normal healthy volunteers.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

We assessed sperm motion parameters and HA.

RESULTS

The measurements of percent spermatozoa with star and/or transitional pattern of HA showed high within-sample variations, especially in samples showing low levels of percent spermatozoa with HA. This was due to the comparatively low numbers of hyperactivated spermatozoa that were present and counted in a sample. Excellent agreement between the two systems was observed for all parameters except for measurements of curvilinear velocity, percent spermatozoa with star-spin hyperactivity, and percent spermatozoa with transitional hyperactivity. The difference might be due to CellTrak's higher level of accuracy in determining velocity.

CONCLUSIONS

The CellTrak system effectively measures human sperm HA provided adequate numbers of motile spermatozoa are analyzed. Although it suffers from the same limitations common to all CASA systems, it is more accurate than the Cellsoft system.