A statistical comparison of three methods for the counting of human spermatozoa

Three methods for the counting of human spermatozoa were compared and evaluated. Firstly the white blood cell pipette and hemocytometer method was used. For the second method the Makler counting chamber was used and the results of the third method were obtained by using a glass tuberculin syringe instead of the white blood cell pipette for diluting purposes. The tuberculin syringe is the standard method used in this laboratory. The tuberculin method showed a high degree of precision and accuracy, especially when compared to the makler counting chamber method. Through a simultaneous pairwise linear structural relationships analysis, whereby an error variance was estimated for each method, it was found that the tuberculin syringe method was the most accurate followed by Makler's method, and then the white blood cell pipette method.