Post Date December, 03 2023
Mr. Li and his wife have been married for more than two years, and their sexual life is quite normal, but the wife's stomach has not moved. The couple were very worried, so they came to the Reproductive Medicine Center for examination. The results showed that Mr. Li's sperm abnormality rate was particularly high, and 99.7% of his sperm belonged to abnormal sperm, which was diagnosed as severe abnormal sperm disease.
Doctors recommend that they have offspring through the second generation in vitro infant (ICSI) technology. However, Mr. Li and his wife are full of questions: if they are pregnant through IVF technology, the sperm deformity rate is high, will it cause fetal malformation? What is the cause of abnormal sperm disease? How should we treat it?
In fact, many infertile couples are also puzzled by the above problems. Today, I will decrypt the "abnormal sperm disease" for you.
The normal rate is less than 4%
According to the latest standard of the World Health Organization (WHO), through strict sperm morphology staining analysis, sperm normal morphology rate less than 4% is abnormal sperm disease. Under normal conditions, the sperm shape is tadpole, including head, neck and tail. Like the disabled people in society, human sperm can also develop abnormally, and under the microscope, it will appear as strange, such as the head is too small, the tail is curly, and so on.
Malformed sperm may have fertilization function defects and it is difficult to fertilize the egg. In fact, most of the sperm in the ejaculated semen of normal men are deformed, and only a few of them are normal. If there are too many abnormal sperm, it will significantly reduce the proportion of "competitive" normal sperm, which will affect the overall "combat power" of sperm, and is not conducive to the successful "capture" of sperm eggs, thus affecting the fertilization ability of sperm. If the sperm abnormality rate is too high, it will lead to low fertility of men and make it difficult for women to conceive.
Genital gland infection, bad living habits and environment are common causes
Studies have shown that genital gland infection and inflammation (epididymitis, orchitis, prostatitis or seminal vesiculitis, etc.), endocrine disorders, chromosome abnormalities and other diseases, as well as smoking, alcohol abuse, staying up late, high work pressure, high temperature working environment, high radiation environment and other bad living habits and living environment are the causes of abnormal sperm.
Most patients with abnormal sperm are fertile
Modern medicine has been able to make most of the patients with abnormal sperm disease have fertility. The combination of traditional Chinese and western medicine and life care can reduce the sperm deformity rate of some patients and achieve natural fertility. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that kidney deficiency, damp heat downpour or stasis are the pathological basis of abnormal sperm, and traditional Chinese medicine or traditional Chinese patent medicines and simple preparations can be used for syndrome differentiation and treatment. Western medicine often uses antibiotics, antioxidant drugs, anti-estrogen drugs and trace elements to treat dysspermia.
However, it is difficult for some patients with dysspermia to reduce sperm deformity rate and natural fertility through the above treatment, and they need to obtain fertility through assisted reproductive technology. Patients with mild and moderate dysspermia can obtain fertility through artificial insemination and first-generation IVF, while patients with severe and extremely severe dysspermia need second-generation IVSI technology. ICSI is the abbreviation of intracytoplasmic sperm microinjection. It is to directly inject a single sperm into the cytoplasm of oocyte to fertilize it with the help of a micromanipulation system.
The severity of dysspermia does not affect the success rate of the second generation IVF. As long as the internal quality of sperm is good, some extremely severe sperm abnormalities (sperm deformity rate is as high as 100%) can also achieve a high fertility success rate through the second-generation IVF technology.
Fetal malformation is not the same as sperm malformation
Will high sperm deformity rate cause fetal malformation? Is it easy to miscarry?
In fact, fetal malformation and sperm malformation are not the same thing. Sperm abnormality is only abnormal in shape, which affects fertilization ability. The internal quality of sperm is the main factor affecting embryo quality and abortion. High sperm deformity rate alone will not lead to an increase in abortion rate and fetal malformation rate, but some patients with abnormal sperm have diseases such as high sperm DNA fragment rate and chromosome abnormality, which will lead to an increase in abortion rate and fetal malformation rate.
Fetal malformation mainly occurs in the early stage of female pregnancy (within the first three months). During this period, if pregnant women are infected with pathogens, have fever, take harmful drugs (antibiotics, hormones, nerves and other drugs with reproductive toxicity), and are exposed to environmental risk factors (alcohol abuse, pesticides, radiation), they will directly endanger the development of fetal organs, resulting in fetal malformation or growth retardation, and are prone to miscarriage. From this point of view, fetal malformation and sperm malformation are not necessarily related.
(Intern editor: Wu Weijie)
