Among infertile couples, 25% involve both male and female factors, while male factor alone accounts for another 25% due to oligo-, astheno-, teratozoospermia, a combination of the three, or even a complete absence of sperm cells in the ejaculate and can lead to a poor prognosis even with the help of assisted reproductive technology (ART). Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) has been with us...

We have investigated the influence of Prostaglandin E1 on the in vitro transcription of chromatin, isolated from spermatozoa of patients suffering from different pathologies, leading to infertility, namely, azoospermia, teratospermia and chronic prostatitis. Our studies indicate that prostaglandin E1 has a stimulatory effect both on in vitro transcription, on the number of RNA polymerase molecu...

The mammalian in vivo micronucleus and sperm morphology assays are widely used as part of the battery of assays for genotoxicity testing required during the development of new drugs. Genotoxicity data on Ciprofloxacin in mammalian system are very limited and mostly contradictory. This study provides more data by assessing the genotoxic potential of ciprofloxacin using mouse micronucleus and spe...

Fifteen Grimaud female hybrid rabbits, 135 days old and weighting an average of 3.74+/-0.01 kg each, were administered an oral dose of 1 mg x kg(-1) body weight of Lindane during gestation and lactation period. Fertility rate, libido, volume of ejaculate, concentration and morphology of spermatozoa were investigated to test the effects of the treatment on reproductive traits of first generation...

A study was conducted to investigate the effect of season on, and to estimate heritabilities of, and genetic correlations among, semen and spermatozoa characteristics and the relationship of these characteristics with measures of testicular or scrotal size in 6-, 9- and 12-month old ram lambs of Menz and Horro sheep breeds indigenous to Ethiopian highlands. A total of 278 ram lambs with substan...

BACKGROUND Pregnancy is accompanied by several hemodynamic, biochemical and hematological changes which revert to normal values after labor. The mean values of these parameters have been reported for developed countries, but not for Mexican women. Furthermore, labor constitutes a stress situation, in which these factors may be altered. It is known that serologic increase of heat shock protein (...

Obesity-associated diabetes in adolescents is increasing throughout the world. In this study, body mass index and capillary blood glucose were measured in a randomly selected sample of adolescents from 3 Lebanese private schools. Obesity was evaluated according to International Obesity Task Force cut-offs. Out of 300 students, 18.7% were at risk of obesity and 3.0% were obese. Random glycaemia ...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate and compare standard sperm parameters, lipid peroxidation of sperm plasma membranes, antioxidant capacity of seminal plasma, and sperm chromatin integrity in ejaculates from men whose partners have a history of recurrent pregnancy loss and from a control group of men with recent fertility. DESIGN Descriptive study. SETTING Reproduction Program, University of Antioquia,...

OBJECTIVE The value of sperm morphology as a predictor of a man's fertilizing potential has often been challenged because of different classification systems used to distinguish between normal and abnormal spermatozoa. The study aimed to monitor the reading skills of 53 laboratory technologists who are enrolled in a continuous quality control program for sperm morphology assessment. DESIGN Pr...

Since the birth of the first test-tube baby in 1978, Assisted Reproduction Techniques (ART) has been performed all over the world to alleviate human infertility. In 1991 with the advent of the Intra-Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) technique, a reasonable rate of male infertility cases due to severe oligospermia were successfully solved. However, several concerns about the safety and impact o...