Quality of Sperm Obtained by Penile Vibratory Stimulation and Percutaneous Vasal Sperm Aspiration in Men With Spinal Cord Injury

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore sperm chromosomal aneuploidy and DNA integrity in infertile patients with spinal cord injury (SCI). Semen samples were collected from 12 infertile men with SCI by percutaneous vasal sperm aspiration (PVSA) and from 14 male SCI patients by penile vibratory stimulation (PVS). These semen samples as well as samples from 16 donors were analyzed using the hypo-osmotic swelling (HOS) test, the sperm chromatin dispersion test, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated terminal uridine nick-end labeling assay, and multicolor fluorescence in situ hybridization with probes specific for the chromosomes 13, 18, 21, X, and Y. There were significant differences in the percentages of motile sperm, normal morphologic sperm, normal HOS/eosin staining, and sperm DNA fragmentation between the infertile men with SCI and the control group (P < .05 and P < .01). The sperm forward motility was significantly greater in the PVSA group than in the PVS group (P < .01). The number of round cells per milliliter of semen obtained from the 14 SCI patients by PVS was between 1 million and 12 million. The rate of sperm DNA fragmentation, as identified by the sperm chromatin dispersion test, was higher in the PVS group than in the PVSA group (P < .05). The aneuploidy rates for the SCI patients were 1.5- to 1.6-fold higher for chromosomes 13, 18, and 21, and were 2.3- to 2.4-fold higher for chromosomes X and Y than for patients in the control group (P < .001). These results suggest that for men with SCI, the semen quality is poorer, the prevalence of abnormal HOS/eosin staining is greater, and sperm DNA fragmentation and sperm chromosomal aneuploidies are seen at a higher rate compared with healthy, fertile, and normospermic men.