Sperm DNA testing, Fertility treatment and Miscarriage
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Investigation of the role of sperm quality in fertility diagnosis, fertility treatment and miscarriage
IRAS ID
263828
Contact name
Andrew Drakeley
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
N/A, N/A
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
With infertility increasing 8-9% per year across Europe and success rates remaining modest with only 25% of couples having a baby following treatment, better diagnostic tests and treatments are urgently needed. Thirty percent of these couples are given a diagnosis of idiopathic or ‘unexplained’ infertility. Without a known cause, it is difficult to guide couples to their best treatment in vitro fertilization; IVF or intracytoplasmic sperm injection; ICSI. If a cause of male infertility is found, advice could also be given on improving sperm quality by either lifestyle improvement and or environmental hazard avoidance. This could lead to improvements in couples’ chances of success with such expensive and poorly successful treatment. This is partially because the routine diagnostic test for the man is a semen analysis; a test that hasn’t changed much since 1940s.
Sperm DNA damage is a more sensitive biomarker for male infertility diagnosis. SpermComet technology can measure the level of DNA damage in individual sperm and therefore can be used to determine the wide range of DNA quality in a whole sperm population.
Recently, ExamenLab Ltd has developed novel parameters for SpermComet technology by measuring low, high and overall damage levels in semen samples from men attending for fertility treatment and compared them with those from fertile donors. In this study, Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust wishes to validate those ‘small study’ findings with a much larger study using data from their own centre.
REC name
Wales REC 4
REC reference
20/WA/0182
Date of REC Opinion
17 Aug 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion