Does the use of microfluidic sperm sorting for the sperm selection improve in vitro fertilization success rates in male factor infertility?

Aim To evaluate the clinical outcome of assisted reproductive technology (ART) cycles in couple with male infertility, where the spermatozoa were selected using either a conventional gradient-density centrifugation technique or microfluidic sperm sorting. Methods A total of 181 patients who underwent in vitro fertilization (IVF) because of male factor infertility at the IVF center of Bezmialem and Yeditepe University Hospital were included in this study. All patients were divided into two groups according to the sperm selection method: group I (n = 91): microfluidic sperm-sorting chip; group II (n = 90): density-gradient centrifugation. Data collected included male and female age, type of infertility, duration of infertility, previous IVF attempts, smoking, antral follicle count, total dosage of gonadotropins, maximum estradiol levels, duration of stimulations, endometrial thickness on human chorionic gonadotropin day, total number of oocytes retrieved, number of mature oocytes retrieved, number of pronuclear (PN), sperm parameters, clinical PR and ongoing PR. Results There was no statistically significant difference in clinical PR and ongoing PR between groups (49.5% vs 40%, P = 0.2; 44% vs 36.7%, P = 0.3; respectively). The improvement in pregnancy rate was more prominent in patients where the female partner's age is higher than 35 (P = 0.09) and men have a total motile sperm count between 1 and 5 million (P < 0.01). Conclusion Microfluidic devices, labs-on-a-chip, are a disposable, easy to use, and inexpensive method for sperm sorting. Our results show that IVF success rates might improve with the use of a microfluidic sperm-sorting chip for sperm selection in male infertility.

Automated summary

The clinical outcomes of assisted reproductive technology cycles in couples with male infertility were evaluated based on whether sperm were selected using conventional gradient-density centrifugation or microfluidic sperm sorting. The results suggest that using a microfluidic sperm-sorting chip for sperm selection may improve IVF success rates in male infertility cases.