Will astheno teratozoospermia cause conception difficulty?

Question

Hello doctor,

I am 26 years old, and my husband is 29 years old. He does not smoke or drink. We have been having trouble conceiving for seven months, so I decided to get tested. My results were fine, but my husband's semen analysis shows rare motile spermatozoa seen in the ejaculate, severe oligo, and astheno teratozoospermia.

What does this mean?

Thank you.

Answer 1

Hello,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

Severe oligo asthenoteratozoospermia where oligo means less in number, astheno means slow-moving, and terato means morphologically defective sperm. For the male counterparts, it is important to have the semen analysis in good range to procreate a child under all these three parameters for natural conception.

The total count should be more than 70 to 90 million. Rapid progressive should be between 80 to 90 %, slow-moving - less than 10 %, and nonmotile - less than 10 %. Terato (abnormal forms) should be less than 4 %.

I would like to see his semen analysis reports before deciding if it could be treated with medicine alone or if he may require a few investigations, like scrotal doppler studies, to check for testicular size and rule out varicocele, if any.

Thank you.

Answer 2

Hello,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

All spaces are empty in the report, indicating that counts were very few or no sperms (possible azoospermia).

I am skeptical because if they mentioned rare motile spermatozoa in the report, they would have counted and mentioned it. As that would indicate that least, your husband have been producing sperm earlier and that the count has gone down now, which is treatable with medicine.

However, if there has been azoospermia or absence of sperms (I am not sure if the laboratory were scared to give an azoospermia report else and even if one active sperm was seen, they would have mentioned it), azoospermia calls for a very different protocol for evaluation where scrotal ultrasound and doppler study would have to be performed to check for testicular size and absence or presence of varicocele and also post-ejaculatory urinalysis to rule out retrograde ejaculation.

I would suggest your husband get a repeat semen analysis done along with semen culture and sensitivity test to compare both reports and to remove bias, as diagnosis would be important to direct yourself to the necessary treatment protocol. The present report needs to mention fructose levels even, which is necessary. It is all blank. I advise changing the laboratory, repeating the tests after three days of abstinence, and following up with a new report.

Thank you.