Morphometric evaluations of testicular tissues from azoospermic boars in Finnish Yorkshire and Landrace breeds

In 1996-2005, ejaculates of 2048 boars were collected. All boars were intended for use in artificial insemination or natural breeding and had two descended testes. Azoospermia was present in 16 of the 1097 Yorkshire boars (1.5%) and in 2 of the 951 Landrace boars (0.2%). The two most frequent diagnoses of azoospermia were arrested spermatogenesis at the pachytene spermatocyte stage (n=8) and segmental aplasia of the Wolffian ducts (n=7). Morphometric evaluations of testicular tissues of azoospermic boars were performed using an image analyzer. The morphometric evaluations revealed decreased portions and diameter of seminiferous tubule in tissue slides from the studied azoospermic boars compared with normal boars. The use of an image analyzer for morphometric evaluations of testicular tissues proved to be a good tool to characterize findings in testicular slides of azoospermic boars.