SwimCount Harvester™ versus Density Gradient Centrifugation: A Pilot Study exploring Sperm DNA Fragmentation and...

Area of Science:

• Reproductive biology
• Sperm selection techniques
• Assisted reproductive technology

Background:

• Sperm DNA fragmentation (SDF) impacts male fertility.
• Density Gradient Centrifugation (DGC) is a standard method for sperm processing.
• Non-centrifugal sperm selection systems offer potential alternatives.

Purpose of the Study:

• Compare SwimCount Harvester™ with DGC for SDF reduction.
• Evaluate agreement between manual and computer-assisted sperm analysis (CASA) for SDF assessment.
• Assess total motile sperm recovery (TMSC) for both methods.

Main Methods:

• Pilot study using DGC and SwimCount Harvester™ on semen samples.
• Sperm Chromatin Dispersion (SCD) assay used for SDF assessment (manual and CASA).
• Cohen's kappa and Cohen's d calculated for agreement and effect size.

Main Results:

• Both DGC and Harvester significantly reduced SDF compared to raw semen.
• No significant difference in SDF reduction between Harvester and DGC.
• Harvester demonstrated significantly higher TMSC than DGC (p=0.001, Cohen's d=0.81).
• Perfect concordance (κ=1.00) between manual and CASA SDF assessment after Harvester processing.

Conclusions:

• SwimCount Harvester™ provides comparable SDF reduction to DGC.
• Harvester significantly enhances motile sperm recovery.
• Non-centrifugal sperm selection is a viable alternative to conventional methods.