Quality Comparison of Three Disposable Sperm Cell Counting Chambers

AND CONCLUSION In this study various quality aspects of the CellVision, Leja, and MicroCell disposable sperm cell counting slides were investigated. The height of the chambers was determined using interferometric spectrometry. The average heights of the Leja and MicroCell were very close, respectively 20.0 μm and 20.3 μm, whereas the CellVision was lower than specification (17.9 μm). The accuracy and reliability of concentration and motility measurements using the chambers was investigated by analyzing various semen samples with the Ceros CASA system of Hamilton Thorne. Counting with the Leja and MicroCell slides results in very similar concentrations, which are also very close to the FACS outcomes (used as external standard). However, the standard deviation and range of the Leja measurements are smaller than of MicroCell. This is probably caused by a non-homogeneous distribution of sperm cells within the MicroCell chamber; at the end of the chamber 70% above the average value was found, whereas deviations within the Leja slide do not exceed 7.4%. For these reasons, Leja is the most reliable chamber for concentration determination. The Leja slide has more advantages. First, less air bubbles are captured during chamber filling as compared to the MicroCell. Second, the highest motility values are measured in the Leja chamber. When using human sperm, motility in the MicroCell chamber is a few percent lower, but with the sensitive boar sperm, motilities in the MicroCell can be reduced by more than 50%. The CellVision chamber is extremely toxic for human, as well as for boar sperm. After 1 minute, hardly any motile cells can be detected anymore (for this reason, some experiments with the CellVision slide were omitted). The results of this study show that there is something to choose for.