VALIDATION OF A SCORING METHOD PREDICTING THE IN-VITRO FERTILIZING ABILITY OF HUMAN SPERMATOZOA

The fertilizing ability of human spermatozoa depends upon numerous fun ctions such as motility, normal morphology, ability to bind to the zon a pellucida and to undergo the acrosome reaction. Hence a lot of tests have been developed to try and predict IVF results. In a previous stu dy we had established a scoring method, based on parameters such as sp erm morphology, vitality, motility and the acrosome reaction, which wa s able to predict up to 83% of in-vitro fertilization results. The pre sent study aimed to validate this score on a separate set of sperm sam ples. The results confirmed those of the first series. The score allow ed prediction of fertilization failures with a 56% sensitivity, a 91% specificity, a 56% positive predictive value and a 91% negative predic tive value. Therefore, this score could be used routinely to choose be tween conventional IVF and ICSI.