New smartphone device provides cheap and easy sperm testing

A new smartphone innovation can now make sperm analysis with a 98 percent accuracy, a recent study uncovered. The device provides an inexpensive alternative to costly and inaccurate methods of male infertility screening.

Infertility is experienced by an estimated 12 percent of the world’s male population. Aiming to address the need for a quick and affordable way to detect male infertility, a research team led by Hadi Shafiee, a professor of engineering in medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, conducted a study.

Sperm testing is usually done through a computer-and-microscope system called Computer-Assisted Semen Analysis (CASA), which costs from US$50,000 to US$100,000 (AU$65,700 to AU$131,300). Smaller clinics with no hope of being able to afford the system make do with manual counting of sperm, utilising a microscope. Men also have to undergo awkward circumstances to produce the sperm.

With the new device costing less than US$5 (less than AU$6.60), sperm testing may soon be done in the privacy of one’s home, like a pregnancy test. The device, which is about the size of a small box of crayons, can be attached like a phone case to a smartphone.

It comes with a chip that would contain the semen sample. Using 350 sperm specimens from the Massachusetts General Hospital Fertility Center, researchers had untrained testers use the apparatus, Live Science reported.

The average person would just have to insert the chip into the gadget and then attach the device to the smartphone. A software app then provides the sperm count, calculation of sperm per millimetre, and detects motility or movement of sperm.

Percentages of Accuracy

The apparatus can detect abnormal sperm samples with 98 percent accuracy. According to World Health Organization (WHO) criteria, abnormal is defined as less than 15 million sperm cells per millimetre of fluid, and less than 40 percent of sperm motility.

Testing showed that the product can correctly diagnose abnormal samples with a 99.3 percent accuracy. The ability to correctly detect normal samples is pegged at 89.4 percent.

An added utility for the device is determining the success of a vasectomy. With 500,000 vasectomies being done in the United States every year, there are clearly men who no longer wish to father children.

They need to return to the clinics for subsequent check-ups after operation, yet only 30 percent do so. Once those men are able to perform their own sperm tests at home, chances of complying with the clinics’ requirement may increase.

The findings of the aforementioned study were recently published in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The application for US Food and Drug Administration approval will follow.