OBJECTIVES:

To compare the effectiveness of carbon dioxide and carbon dioxide-free incubation system in extracting motile, morphologically normal and chromatin intact sperm populations from the individual semen samples.

METHODS:

Semen samples were obtained from normozoospermic men presenting for infertility evaluation. Individual samples were divided into two equal aliquots for sperm wash using CO2 and CO2 free system. Sperm motility, viability, morphology and DNA integrity were assessed in the washed spermatozoa. Sperm DNA integrity was evaluated by acridine orange binding and expressed as the percentage of spermatozoa demonstrating denatured DNA.

RESULTS:

There was no significant difference in the mean sperm count, motility and morphology of sperms extracted by two systems and both CO2 and CO2 free systems significantly eliminated the number of sperm with denatured DNA.

CONCLUSIONS:

CO2 free system is comparable to conventional CO2 incubation system for swim-up technique in recovering spermatozoa with enhanced motility, morphology and higher DNA integrity.

Keywords: Sperm wash, Water bath, CO2 incubator, Sperm chromatin, IUI