1. Introduction

The development of in vitro produced human embryos is directly dependent on the quality of the oocytes and spermatozoa which are used for in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). The examination of oocyte and spermatozoa morphology is currently considered to be a tool devoted to the fertility prognosis. Morphology of spermatozoa has been recognized as the best predictor of outcome for natural fertilization, intrauterine insemination and IVF. The spermatozoa morphology also plays a significant role in ICSI outcome [1].

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and eproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The aim of this work was to review the methods of spermatozoa morphology assessment, features of the normal spermatozoa and the reasons of their various abnormalities.

2.1.2. Motile sperm organelle morphology examination (MSOME)

morphologically examined in live motile spermatozoa [19–25].

Figure 2. The birefringence of human spermatozoa ([26], with permission).

This method is used for evaluating the morphology of the live (non-fixed, non-stained) spermatozoa before the ICSI. Using the high magnification (6000 and more) by the inverted computerized microscope, it is possible to observe the morphological abnormalities in spermatozoa, which are not visible with magnification 400 (Figure 1). The neck, tail, midpiece, mitochondria, acrosome and post-acrosomal lamina and the nucleus of spermatozoon are

Assessment of Human Sperm Cells Morphological Parameters

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Figure 1. Spermatozoa morphology using MSOME ([19], open access). (A) Normal spermatozoa observed at high

magnification (8400); (B) spermatozoa with large nuclear vacuoles observed at high magnification (8400).
