The significance of sperm morphology in infertility and miscarriage

  With the development of medicine, the rapid rise of male science and the increase of patients with infertility, simple routine semen examination can no longer meet the needs of clinical development, nor can it fully and objectively reflect the real situation of the patient, let alone evaluate the testicular function, therefore, sperm morphological examination is particularly important. The normal or abnormal morphology of male sperm is directly related to human reproductive health and reproduction. According to a study conducted by the National Population and Family Planning Commission, the quality of male semen in China is declining at a rate of 1% per year in recent years. At the same time, the probability of deformed children and infertility is increasing year by year, seriously threatening many families.  The so-called sperm morphological examination is to understand the proportion of normal sperm and physiological and pathological range of variant sperm, which is an important indicator of male fertility.  Normal sperm resembles a tadpole and consists of three parts: head, body and tail. Any abnormal morphology in any of these three parts is called aberrant sperm.  Normal semen should have at least 4% of normal sperm in order to conceive normally. Abnormal sperm morphology is often associated with infection, trauma, androgenic changes or chemical and genetic influences. Non-specific infections of the reproductive system can lead to an increased proportion of acromegalic and indeterminate head sperm; varicocele can cause swelling or defects in the head or body of sperm due to high temperature in the scrotum and lack of oxygen in the testicular tissue caused by poor venous return; immature sperm and other germ cells and cytoplasmic droplets of sperm cell bodies can appear in the semen when hormones or certain chemicals are taken.  A high rate of abnormal sperm may lead to infertility or recurrent spontaneous abortions. Therefore, for these patients, we now routinely perform sperm morphological analysis to rule out high sperm abnormality rates leading to disease.