Testicular Spermatozoa Are of Better Quality Than Epididymal Spermatozoa in Patients With Obstructive Azoospermia

Objective To assess sperm quality as a function of the sampling site (testis or epididymis) in obstructive azoospermia (OA). Materials and Methods DNA fragmentation rates in spermatozoa sampled from the testis and epididymis (from patients with different etiologies of OA) were assessed in a dUTP nick-end labeling assay. Results Twenty-one OA patients were included: 5 had congenital bilateral absence of the vas deferens, 8 had genital tract infections, and 8 had idiopathic OA. A total of 8506 spermatozoa sampled from the testis, 18,358 sampled from the caput epididymis, and 18,881 sampled from the corpus/cauda epididymis were assessed. For each patient, spermatozoa from the testis had a lower overall DNA fragmentation rate (6.71% ± 0.75 in average) than epididymal spermatozoa from the caput (14.86% ± 1.89 in average; P  = .0007) or the corpus/cauda (32.61% ± 3.11 in average; P P  = .06). Conclusion Our data argue in favor of using testicular sperm (rather than epididymal sperm) for patients with obstructive azoospermia.