Continued existence of significant disparities in the technical practices of sperm morphology assessment and the clinical implications: results of a French questionnaire
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Objective To investigate current practices for sperm morphology assessment. Design E-mail survey questionnaire. Setting Diagnostic and clinical institutions/laboratories. Patient(s) French biologists and clinicians (n = 225). Intervention(s) None. Main outcome measure(s) Answers to 24 questions. Result(s) The survey shows that even now in France there is great inconsistency in the use of sperm morphology assessments. For example, the survey revealed that no fewer than six different staining techniques were in use. Automatic reading is hardly used (used by 2.5% of the biologists replying to the survey). More than 33.6% of biologists use a threshold of normal forms unsuited to their classification, and 20% do not perform any internal quality control in this area. Prescribing doctors seldom trust the tests, likely due to their lack of analytic reliability. Among the biologists surveyed 26% said the percentage of normal forms is either unreliable or not very reliable in analytic terms, and 24% of clinicians stated that it has little clinical relevance. Conclusion(s) The survey reveals a marked lack of uniformity in French laboratories for performing sperm morphology assessment and in the use of the results by physicians. Regular quality control procedures and well-trained personnel, up to date with their training and conversant with the latest techniques as well as harmonized practices, are clearly indispensable. It is time for a consensus on the practice and interpretation of th…
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44.8% of questioned clinicians rarely or never take sperm abnormality indexes into account for the diagnosis of infertility, and 50% rarely or never consider them for the choice or prognosis of an ART technique.
“Recent data show there is a lack of support from clinicians for this type of index, because 44.8% of those questioned rarely or never take them into account for the diagnosis of infertility, and 50% rarely or never consider them for the choice or prognosis of an ART technique [12].”
From Recommendations for Human Sperm Morphology Assessment in 2025: An Expert Review From the French BLEFCO Group (2026) · cites this paper as [12]
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The evaluation of morphological characteristics of human spermatozoa according to stricter criteria
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Isolated abnormal strict morphology is not a contraindication for intrauterine insemination
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Kohn, T. P., Kohn, J. R., & Ramasamy, R. (2018) · Journal of Urology · doi:10.1016/j.juro.2017.11.045 · Cited by 56 · see citing works
van den Hoven, L., van Vrouwerff, N. J., Dijkstra, I. M., Weeteling, J., Brinkman, J. W., Eliveld, J., & Wetzels, A. M. M. (2025) · Andrology · doi:10.1111/andr.13684 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Gatimel, N., Barbotin, A., Mery, L., Beauvillard, D., Bendayan, M., Boursier, A., Boueilh, T., Pereira, B., Chammas, J., Jacquet, J., et al. (2026) · Andrology · doi:10.1111/andr.70134 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Gatimel, N., Mansoux, L., Moreau, J., Parinaud, J., & Léandri, R. D.
- Affiliations
- Hôpital Paule de Viguier (FR)
- Corresponding author
- Gatimel, Nicolas
- Venue
- Fertility and Sterility
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2017-02
- Volume
- 107
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 365-372.e3
- ISSN
- 0015-0282 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2554705913
- Cited by
- 22
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 2 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 2
- FWCI
- 3.09
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Fertility and Sterility (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Reproductive Medicine › Sperm and Testicular Function
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Clinical Laboratory Practices and Quality Control
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Reproductive Medicine › Reproductive Health and Technologies
- Keywords
- sperm morphology assessment, computer-assisted sperm analysis, internal quality control, test reliability
- MeSH terms
- France, Humans, Male, Practice Patterns, Physicians', Predictive Value of Tests, Quality Control, Surveys and Questionnaires, Spermatozoa, Reproducibility of Results, Health Care Surveys, Quality Indicators, Health Care, Consensus, Cell Shape, Healthcare Disparities, Semen Analysis, Quality Improvement
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