COMPARATIVE-STUDIES ON VARIOUS MODES OF CLASSIFICATION OF MORPHOLOGY OF SPERM HEADS AND RESULTS IN IN-VITRO FERTILIZATION - A PRELIMINARY-REPORT

In a retrospective blind study, Papanicolaou's stained semen smears of the husbands of 105 patients who took part in the in vitro fertilizat ion/embryo transfer (IVF/ET) program of the Department of Gynecology a nd Obstetrics at the Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf in 1991, wer e evaluated for the rates of normal sperm heads. The patients were div ided into three groups according to the results of the IVF/ET: A=no fe rtilized egg; B= only fertilization, no pregnancy; C=pregnancy/birth. Four different categories of the sperm heads' morphology were defined: 1) 'Ideally' normal heads (normal size, relations width to length 2/3 to 3/5, acrosomal region greater than or equal to 40 less than or equ al to 70%); 2) Normal heads with only minor deviations from the 'ideal ly' normal form, strictly excluding spermatozoa with inhomogeneously s tained acrosomal or pointed post-acrosomal regions; 3) Sperm heads wit h major alterations which are nevertheless widely considered as still normal in the literature; 4) Heads which are generally accepted as pat hologically formed. It could be shown that the application of the stri ct criteria in the categories 1 plus 2 lead to significant differences not only between the IVF/ET groups A and B or C, but also between the groups B and C.