Comparison of the outcomes of different human spermatozoa selection methods in assisted reproduction

Abstract

Selecting sperm by density-gradients in assisted reproductive technologies has a great improvement in keeping DNA integrity and sperm quality. However, study showed that histone retention and DNA methylation were changed in the method of selecting human spermatozoa by density-gradients in assisted reproductive technologies. In the present study, a total of 1874 cycles (1411cycles of using density-gradients method or the combination of density-gradients and swim-up (group A) and 463 cycles of using swim-up only (group B)) of in vitro fertilization (IVF)/Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) that were performed in our hospital from January 2010 to December 2015 were retrospectively analyzed. Implantation rate, clinical pregnancy rate, miscarriage rate, ectopic pregnancy rate, twin pregnancy rate, still birth rate, prematurity rate, low birth weight rate, live birth rate, macrosomia rate and fetal or baby abnormality rate were compared. There were no significant differences in the clinical items shown above between two groups except for the live birth rate of per transferred cycle. Live birth rate was higher in the group A than group B. We conclude that both using density-gradients (or combination with swim-up) and swim-up method alone to separate sperm are safe to prepare the sperm for IVF and ICSI.