Oxidation–reduction potential and sperm DNA fragmentation, and their associations with sperm morphological anomalies amongst fertile and infertile men

Peer review under responsibility of Arab Association of Urology.

Figures & data

Table 1 Demographic, conventional semen analysis, and advanced sperm function characteristics of the sample.

Variable, mean (SE)	Infertile patients (n = 1169)	Fertile controls (n = 100)	P
Demography
Age, years	35.92 (0.22)	32.32 (0.72)	<0.001
Abstinence, days	3.83 (0.05)	3.53 (0.13)	0.087
Conventional semen analysis
Volume, mL	3.17 (0.06)	2.73 (0.12)	0.067
Count, ×10^6/mL	32.65 (0.78)	58.72 (2.5)	<0.001
Total motility,%	50.07 (0.54)	60.41 (1.21)	<0.001
Total morphology,%	5.72 (0.22)	9.86 (0.51)	<0.001
Head defect,%	53.76 (0.43)	47.62 (0.67)	<0.001
Neck defect,%	23.79 (0.25)	23.88 (0.59)	0.916
Tail defect,%	17.10 (0.24)	18.94 (0.71)	0.328
Advanced sperm function tests
SDF, %	27.60 (1.02)	15.68 (0.92)	<0.001
ORP, mV/10^6 sperm/mL	5.44 (0.34)	1.18 (0.94)	<0.001

Mann–Whitney test; bolded cells indicate statistical significance.

Fig. 1 Significant correlations between ORP, SDF, and sperm morphology: (A) amongst infertile patients; (B) amongst fertile controls.

Table 2 Correlations between ORP, SDF and sperm morphology amongst fertile controls and infertile patients.

	ORP	SDF, %	Morphology, %
			Abnormal			Normal
			Neck defect	Head defect	Tail defect
Infertile patients (n = 1169)
ORP	1	0.222^**	−0.051	0.438^**	−0.228	−0.562^**
SD, %	0.222^**	1	−0.092	0.327^**	−0.117	−0.351^**
Fertile controls (n = 100)
ORP	1	0.004	0.121	0.127	−0.033	−0.195
SDF, %	0.004	1	0.092	0.366^*	−0.190	−0.257

ORP measured in mV/10⁶ sperm/mL; ^*significant at 0.01 level; ^**significant at 0.001 level.

Table 3 ORP and SDF associated with five increasing levels of normal morphology across the whole sample (N = 1269).

	Normal sperm forms morphology, mean (SE)					P
	0%	1%	2%	3%	≥4%
ORP	13.12 (1.84)	12.04 (1.27)	7.30 (0.73)	4.92 (0.55)	1.99 (0.26)	<0.001
SDF,%	56.00 (8.18)	38.55 (3.75)	31.58 (2.71)	26.53 (2.16)	22.66 (1.04)	<0.001

Mann–Whitney test; ORP measured in mV/10⁶ sperm/mL.

Fig. 2 ROC curves for: (A) ORP threshold; (B) SDF threshold against <4% or ≥4% normal sperm morphology.