Effect of microsurgical varicocelectomy on human sperm chromatin and DNA integrity: a prospective trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
There is evidence from retrospective studies that varicocelectomy can improve sperm DNA damage in infertile men with a clinical varicocele. The objective of this prospective study was to examine further the effect of varicocelectomy on sperm chromatin and DNA integrity. We evaluated a consecutive series of infertile men (n = 25) who underwent microsurgical varicocelectomy for treatment of clinical varicocele. We examined conventional sperm parameters and sperm chromatin structure assay parameters (percentage DFI--DNA fragmentation index and percentage HDS--high DNA stainability, an index of chromatin compaction) before and 4 and 6 months after microsurgical varicocelectomy. Sperm DNA integrity improved significantly after surgery (percentage DFI decreased from 18 ± 11% before surgery to 10 ± 5%, and 7 ± 3%, at 4 and 6 months after surgery respectively). Sperm chromatin compaction also improved significantly after surgery (percentage HDS decreased from 11 ± 7% before surgery to 8 ± 6%, and 7 ± 5%, at 4 and 6 months after surgery, respectively). Sperm concentration and progressive motility improved after surgery, although the differences were not statistically significant when compared with that before surgery. The data show that varicocelectomy is associated with an improvement in sperm DNA integrity and chromatin compaction. These findings support the concept that correction of a varicocele can improve spermatogenesis, particularly spermiogenesis (the stage in spermatogenesis where compaction and stability of the sperm DNA and chromatin occur).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".