Male Age Factor May Affect Results of Pregnancy
Girsh E.
ELNAT Reproduction, Rehovot, Israel
Abstract.
The aim of this study was to examine the association of male age and semen parameters in Egg Donation Program (EDP) cycles. EDP offers a pool of high quality oocytes, thus permitting better analysis of the sperm efficacy.
The retrospective study population consisted of 624 male partners of patients undergoing EDP in in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments. A comparison was made of male age and sperm parameters within two groups: cycles resulting in a pregnancy (pregnant group) and cycles which failed to achieve a pregnancy (non-pregnant group). The men involved in the pregnant group were found to be significantly younger 42.2 ± 8.1 than those of the non-pregnant group 47.6 ± 7.6 (p = 0.003). Analysis of sperm morphology revealed a significant prevalence of teratozoospermia in males of the non-pregnant group, as compared to the males of the pregnant group (29 % versus 11 %, respectively). The results also demonstrate that sperm parameters are apparently not diminished until men reach the age of 40. However, between 40–50 years old semen parameters deteriorate. Additionally, the results showed that the percentage of «healthy» embryos on day 3 of embryo culture was lower in the non-pregnant group (25 %), as compared with the pregnant group (38 %; p = 0.01).
Our study approves that sperm parameters are reduced by age and suggests that this age-dependent effect could be a reason for failures in IVF cycles even in EDP couples.
Keywords:
IVF, egg donation, infertility, male age, sperm, embryo quality
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Author
Girsh Eliezer
ELNAT Reproduction
Ph.D., Head and scientific director of ELNAT Reproduction
Address: Binyamin 35, Rehovot 76241, Israel
e-mail: eligirsh@yahoo.com