Comparison of Swim-Up and Microfluidic Sperm Sorting Methods in Selection of Sperm for Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection

TL;DR

This study compares two sperm sorting methods for IVF and finds that microfluidic sorting reduces DNA damage in sperm from men with poor sperm quality.

Contribution

The study provides a direct comparison of microfluidic sperm sorting and swim-up methods in different sperm quality groups.

Findings

Microfluidic sperm sorting reduced DNA fragmentation in non-normozoospermic men compared to swim-up.

No significant differences were found between the two methods in normozoospermic men.

Microfluidic sorting is simple but does not offer major advantages over swim-up in most parameters.

Abstract

The use of microfluidic sperm sorting (MFSS) systems in infertility treatment is increasing due to their practicality and ease of use. While often presented as highly effective, their efficacy in patients with varying sperm analysis results remains uncertain. In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of MFSS compared with the swim-up (SU) technique in terms of oxygen radical levels and spermiogram parameters. Samples from each patient were processed using both methods, followed by assessments of sperm concentration, motility, morphology, DNA integrity, acrosomal status, and mitochondrial membrane potential. Participants were selected based on sperm analysis and categorized as normozoospermic (n = 40) or non-normozoospermic (n = 28). An analysis of separation techniques revealed no significant differences, except for a lower percentage of DNA-fragmented sperm in the MFSS group compared with SU within the non-normozoospermic cohort (SU: 10.0% vs. MFSS: 5.69%, p = 0.027). No differences were observed between SU and MFSS in normozoospermic men. The MFSS method is a simple technique, frequently used in laboratories, that yields good results but does not offer a substantial advantage over SU. The primary benefit of MFSS appears to be a significant reduction in the proportion of sperm with DNA fragmentation compared with SU in patients with abnormal sperm analysis results.

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