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Updated: Jul 5, 2026

Flow Cytometric Analysis of Biomarkers for Detecting Human Sperm Functional Defects
Published on: April 21, 2022
Correlation between DNA damage and sperm parameters: a prospective study of 1,633 patients
Paul Cohen-Bacrie1, Stephanie Belloc, Yves J R Ménézo
1Laboratoire d'Eylau, Paris, France. pcb@eylau.fr
Objective:
To investigate DNA fragmentation by using terminal deoxyribonucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling in relation to World Health Organization parameters and computer-aided sperm analysis (CASA) in sperm to determine the possibility of obtaining a correlation among CASA parameters, sperm morphology, and DNA fragmentation.
Design:
Sperm analysis according to World Health Organization parameters, terminal deoxyribonucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling (TUNEL) for sperm DNA fragmentation, and CASA for sperm movement. Prospective study.
Setting:
All the patients were under clinical management, consulting for hypofertility at a fertility center in France.
Patient(S):
One thousand six hundred thirty-three men who were referred for infertility investigation, including a complete sperm analysis.
Intervention(S):
Sperm analysis and DNA damage testing.
Main Outcome Measure(S):
Sperm morphology, DNA fragmentation, and movement characteristics.
Result(S):
One third of the patients had a TUNEL rate of >30%. Analysis of the 21 semen parameters tested revealed that 7 of them were significantly correlated with the TUNEL results.
Conclusion(S):
World Health Organization sperm parameters and DNA damage are complementary, rather than strongly linked. This should be considered to more fully understand the paternal contribution in assisted reproductive technologies failures.
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