Evaluation of Sperm Selection Procedure Based on its Binding Ability to Hyaluronic Acid on ICSI Outcome

Literature studies have suggested that morphology and motility parameters are not discriminatory value with respect to identification of normal mature sperm with intact DNA during Intra Cytoplasm Sperm Injection (ICSI). Thus, sperm surface markers, such as hyaluronic acid (HA) binding, have proposed to be useful for sperm selection for ICSI. Therefore, during this study the efficiency of HA sperm selection method was compared to routine ICSI procedure.Semen samples from 50 couples were collected on the day of oocyte recovery. Semen analysis was carried out according to WHO criteria. For preparation dishes, hyaluronic acid was placed in dish. Denude oocytes were randomly divided to HA and control groups in G-oocyte drops under oil in a dish prepared for ICSI. For HA-ICSI, sperm were selected according to their binding ability to HA and the best morphology and motility. The percentage of fertilization, cleavage rate, embryo quality, implantation and pregnancy rate were compared between two groups with SPSS-11.5 software.Unlike percentage fertilization which was significantly higher in the HA group compared to the control group (P = 0.020), cleavage and embryo quality rate in the HA group on the second and third day the mean number of embryos per transfer was not significantly different between the two groups (P = 0.06). However, the cleavage rate in HA group was, close to be significantly higher on the second day (P = 0.066). Implantation and pregnancy rates were also significantly higher in the HA group compared to the control group.The results of this study suggest that HA sperm selection may improve the ICSI outcome.