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Male Subfertility and Sperm Chromatin Damage

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Sperm Chromatin

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Abstract

Male subfertility contributing to about half of all involuntary childlessness is affected by a variety of genetic, behavioural and environmental factors. The value of the conventional semen quality analysis used to diagnose male infertility/subfertility is limited. The parameters recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), sperm concentration, motility and morphology, are not sufficient to fully describe all the sperm biological properties needed to achieve fertilization and pregnancy, in spontaneous or assisted conception. During the last ten years, the assessment of sperm DNA integrity has emerged as a strong candidate as a new biomarker of semen quality that may help in the discrimination between infertile and fertile men and in predicting pregnancy outcome and risk of adverse reproductive events.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank all the authors whose papers have been quoted and apologize to those whose contributions could not be cited because of lack of space.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Reproductive Medicine Centre, Skåne University Hospital Malmö, Lund University, Sodra Forstadsgatan, Malmö, 20502, Sweden

    Mona Bungum MSc, Med Dr, PhD

  2. Reproductive Medicine Centre, Skåne University Hospital Malmö, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden

    Aleksander Giwercman MD, PhD

  3. Laboratory of Toxicology, Unit of Radiation Biology and Human Health, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Engery, and Sustainable Economic Development , Casaccia Research Centre, Casaccia, Rome, Italy

    Marcello Spanò PhD

Authors
  1. Mona Bungum MSc, Med Dr, PhD
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  2. Aleksander Giwercman MD, PhD
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  3. Marcello Spanò PhD
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Correspondence to Mona Bungum MSc, Med Dr, PhD .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. St. Mary's Hospital, Div. Urology, McGill University, Lacombe Avenue 3830, Montreal, H3T 1M5, Québec, Canada

    Armand Zini

  2. Lerner College of Medicine, Center for Reproductive Medicine, Cleveland Clinic, Euclid Avenue 9500, Cleveland, 44195, Ohio, USA

    Ashok Agarwal

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Bungum, M., Giwercman, A., Spanò, M. (2011). Male Subfertility and Sperm Chromatin Damage. In: Zini, A., Agarwal, A. (eds) Sperm Chromatin. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6857-9_22

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