ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

Minerva Urologica e Nefrologica 2007 December;59(4):413-6

Copyright © 2007 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

New software for the automatic and semiautomatic assessment of sperm morphology

Rossi T., Delfino M., Imbrogno N., Elia J., Centini S., Mazzilli F.

Unit of Andrology Department of Medical Pathophysiology 2nd Faculty of Medicine, Sant’Andrea Hospital La Sapienza University, Rome, Italy

Aim. An attempt was made to improve the standardization of sperm morphology assessment.
Methods. A software for computerized automatic/semiautomatic sperm morphology assessment was developed and a comparative study between this computerized system and the subjective micrometric method was carried out.
Results. The software has shown to be very reliable and reproducible. The subjective micrometric method significantly underestimated the percentage of atypical forms compared with the objective method.
Conclusion. Until the development of new fully-automatic techniques, this system is certainly an effective first step in the objective, reproducible standardization of sperm morphology assessment.