Analysis of MYO-Inositol effect on spermatozoa motility, in hyper viscous ejaculates and in patients with grades II and III varicocele

Abstract

The goal of this study is to evaluate MYO-Inositol effects on spermatozoa motility, in patients’ ejaculates with severe varicocele or hyper viscosity. The study included normal viscosity ejaculate from 30 patients affected by varicocele and hyper viscosity ejaculate from 33 patients without any testicular pathologies. All selected samples showed sperm concentration > 2 million/ml and progressive motility < 32%. In both groups, the pellet obtained after centrifugation in buffered medium, was divided in two aliquots, both incubated for 15 minutes at 37°C: one with MYO-Inositol and the other one, as control, only in phosphate buffered saline (PBS). Afterwards, the sperm progressive motility was assessed using Computer Assisted Sperm Analysis (CASA system). Incubation with MYO-Inositol improved sperm progressive motility in high viscosity samples compared to control group (38.9% ± 3.0 vs 24.35% ± 2.41, respectively; p ≤ 0.0001). Conversely, no statistically significant difference was observed in total sperm progressive motility in varicocele samples compared with control group (22.7% ± 2.07 vs 26.7% ± 3.31, respectively; p = 0.085). The MYO-Inositol positive effect on spermatozoa motility may depend on the type of sperm damage: heavy structural and biochemical defects which typically affects patients with varicocele are not restored by Inositol. On the contrary, MYO-Inositol is able to improve sperm motility in semen samples with high viscosity, since those samples show no substantial structural sperm defects.