Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: To analyse the semen quality in patients with newly diagnosed lymphoma’s before starting the treatment.

Materials and methods: We evaluated semen quality in 131 patient with lymphoma who underwent sperm banking in our clinic over a 14-year period. 102 patients had Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and 29 had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Semen samples were collected by masturbation after 2–7 days of sexual abstinence. Age at banking, semen volume, sperm concentration, and total and progressive sperm motility were recorded. Semen parameters were compared to established World Health Organisation (WHO) reference values (WHO Laboratory Manual for the Examination and Processing of Human Semen, Fifth Edition, 2010).

Results: The median age of these patients was 26 years (range 17–43); median semen volume was 2.0 ml (range 0.1–6.5); median sperm concentration was 63.8×106 per ml (range 0–413); median total and progressive sperm motility were 40% (range 0–84) and 24% (range 0–69), respectively. According to the reference values of the WHO 34 patients (26%) in this series had a semen quality within the normal range, and 97 patients (74%) had abnormal semen quality. In 2 patients (1.5%) the semen samples were not frozen because of azoospermia (no spermatozoa in the ejaculate). 69 patients (52.7%) had single damages (oligozoospermia or asthenozoospermia) and 26 patients (19.8%) had combined damages (oligoasthenozoospermia).

Conclusion: Patients with lymphoma have an increased risk for poor semen quality before any treatment. 74% of these men in our study had abnormal semen parameters according to the WHO. Generally, all patients with newly diagnosed lymphoma’s need counselling about their reproductive function and semen cryopreservation should be offered before undergoing gonadotoxic treatment.