Micro-spoon technique in estimation of sperm concentration in rat epididymis

Several technical procedures mere described for estimation of epididymal sp erm concentration until today. In all of the described techniques, epididym al material was drawn into a micro-pipette before counting procedure. We ai med to proceed this stage without using any pipette because of the difficul ty in aspirating very viscous epididymal material into a micro-pipette. For measuring epididymal material we used a 2 mu l reservoir which me named as a micro-spoon. It was filled with the epididymal material and layered in a tube with Ringer's solution of 2 mi containing sodium hyaluronate. Then, i t was mixed in order to obtain 1/1000 diluted suspension. Sperm cells in th is suspension were counted on a Makler chamber under a light microscope. Th e procedure was easy and time saving, compared to the other techniques. (C) 2000 Tohoku University Medical Press.