Relationship between sperm progressive motility and DNA integrity in fertile and infertile men

Abstract Background Progressive sperm motility was found to be predictive for in vitro and in vivo fertilization. There has been an increase in the literature of studies investigating whether DNA fragmentation could be associated with other semen parameters; however, few reports focused on the relationship between sperm DNA fragmentation and progressive sperm motility. Purpose We purposed here to determine the relationship between DNA fragmentation level and progressive sperm motility in different groups of infertile asthenozoospermic patients as well as in healthy men of proven fertility. Study design Retrospective study. Setting Andrology Laboratory of the Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) department of Elite fertility and gynecology center, Cairo, Egypt. Patients and methods Semen samples were collected and examined after liquefaction for 20 min at 37 °C from 182 patients. Patient were then classified as asthenozoospermic [(Mild asthenozoospermia; PR (progressive sperm motility) = 30–20%, n = 58), (Moderate asthenozoospermia; PR = 20–10%, n = 68) and (Severe asthenozoospermia; PR  Outcome results Fertile healthy men showed lower sperm DNA fragmentation levels as compared with asthenozoospermic infertile men. There was a significant negative correlation of sperm DNA fragmentation using the modified sperm chromatin dispersion (SCD) test with motility (r = −0.319; P  Conclusion Overall, our data suggest that sperm DNA damage is strongly associated with both type and percentage of motility.