D. Katsoff et al., CHYMOTRYPSIN-GALACTOSE TREATMENT OF SPERM WITH ANTISPERM ANTIBODIES RESULTS IN IMPROVED PREGNANCY RATES FOLLOWING IN-VITRO FERTILIZATION, American journal of reproductive immunology [1989], 33(2), 1995, pp. 149-154
PROBLEM: To determine if chymotrypsin-galactose (CG) treatment of sper
m bound with antisperm antibodies (ASA) improves pregnancy rates (PRs)
following in vitro fertilization (IVF). METHOD: Patients with >50% AS
A who failed to conceive despite six intrauterine insemination (IUI) c
ycles were included. Initially the sperm treatments were randomized wi
th CG vs culture medium; subsequently only CG treatment was used.RESUL
TS: There was a significantly lower fertilization rate in those patien
ts inseminated with sperm incubated in culture medium vs CG (27% vs 47
%, P<.05 t-test). Similarly, a higher percentage of patients receiving
culture medium treatment of sperm had failed fertilization (45%) comp
ared to CG (11%). Though the clinical PRs were higher with CG (21%) th
an medium (9.5%), there was no statistical difference. CONCLUSIONS: Th
ough the percentage of sperm bound with antibodies are not reduced, we
hypothesize that the CG treatment improves fertility by possibly miti
gating the antagonistic action of these antibodies.