Effects of different sperm sources on clinical outcomes in intracytoplasmic sperm injection cycles

The aim was to investigate the influences of different sperm sources on clinical outcome and neonatal outcome of patients with intracytoplasmic sperm injection. We retrospectively analysed patients who underwent intracytoplasmic sperm injection in our reproductive centre from 2011 to 2020. We screened data on assisted reproductive outcomes from four groups of sources: testicular sperm, epididymal sperm, ejaculated sperm and donor sperm for analysis and divided the non-ejaculated group from the ejaculated group to explore their impact on clinical outcomes and neonatal outcomes. A total of 2139 cycles were involved in this study. There were significant differences in fertilisation rate (77.0% vs. 73.6%, p < .001), cleavage rate (97.4% vs. 94.4%, p < .001) and high-quality embryo rate (52.8% vs. 49.9%, p < .001) between the ejaculated and non-ejaculated sperm groups. There were no significant differences amongst the four groups in biochemical pregnancy rate, clinical pregnancy rate, abortion rate, live birth rate, male-female ratio and single-twin ratio. Different sperm sources did not affect the length, weight or physical defects of newborns amongst the groups. Sperm source did not affect pregnancy and neonatal outcomes of intracytoplasmic sperm injection in general.