Testicular Spermatozoa Are of Better Quality Than Epididymal Spermatozoa in Patients With Obstructive Azoospermia.

OBJECTIVE

To assess sperm quality as a function of the sampling site (testis or epididymis) in obstructive azoospermia (OA).

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

DNA fragmentation rates in spermatozoa sampled from the testis and epididymis (from patients with different etiologies of OA) were assessed in a dUTP nick-end labeling assay.

RESULTS

Twenty-one OA patients were included: 5 had congenital bilateral absence of the vas deferens, 8 had genital tract infections, and 8 had idiopathic OA. A total of 8506 spermatozoa sampled from the testis, 18,358 sampled from the caput epididymis, and 18,881 sampled from the corpus/cauda epididymis were assessed. For each patient, spermatozoa from the testis had a lower overall DNA fragmentation rate (6.71% ± 0.75 in average) than epididymal spermatozoa from the caput (14.86% ± 1.89 in average; P = .0007) or the corpus/cauda (32.61% ± 3.11 in average; P < .0001). The DNA fragmentation rates did not differ significantly as a function of the etiology of OA. In this small series, all deliveries were obtained with sperm samples with a low DNA fragmentation rate and delivery rates tended to be higher when testicular sperm (rather than epididymal sperm) was used (35.7% vs 12.1%, respectively; P = .06).

CONCLUSION

Our data argue in favor of using testicular sperm (rather than epididymal sperm) for patients with obstructive azoospermia.