Objective: To provide information of semen quality among young Chinese men in the past 15 years.
Design: Retrospective cross-sectional study.
Setting: Sperm bank.
Patient(s): A total of 30,636 young adult men who applied to be sperm donors at the Hunan Province Human Sperm Bank of China in 2001-2015 were included in the study.
Intervention(s): Physical examination and analysis of blood and semen samples.
Main outcome measure(s): Semen parameters, such as semen volume, sperm concentration, total sperm count, progressively motile sperm count, sperm progressive motility, sperm morphology, and round cells.
Result(s): Many of the semen parameters showed a decreasing trend over the 15-year observation period. The sperm concentration and percentage of sperm with normal morphology decreased from 68 × 106/mL to 47 × 106/mL and from 31.8% to 10.8%, respectively. Although sperm progressive motility showed irregular variation, the progressively motile sperm count decreased from 34 × 106 to 21 × 106 over the 15-year period. Furthermore, the rate of qualified donors fell from 55.78% in 2001 to 17.80% in 2015, and the rate for 2015 was approximately threefold lower than the corresponding rates in 2001.
Conclusion(s): The semen quality among young Chinese men has declined over a period of 15 years, especially in terms of sperm concentration, total sperm count, sperm progressive motility, and normal morphology.
Keywords: Chinese young men; semen parameters; semen quality.
Copyright © 2016 American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.