Simultaneous Assessment of Human Sperm Motility and Morphology by Videomicrography

Abstract

Videotapes were analyzed to assess sperm motility and morphology in the semen of 5 fertile donors and 20 infertile patients. The slow motion playback control of the video recorder allowed simultaneous assessment of the motility and morphology of individual sperm cells. Similar values were obtained with this method for living sperm cells and for sperm on fixed, Papanicolaou-stained seminal smears. Spermatozoa with abnormal morphology more often were immotile or weakly motile than were the normal sperm in the same ejaculates. Normal oval sperm in the semen of infertile men were less likely to be motile and tended to swim more slowly than did morphologically normal sperm in the semen of fertile men.