Home Fertility Tests Now Include Men
Fertility testing at home is no longer just for women. A new device, similar in appearance to ovulation and pregnancy tests, has been developed to check sperm count. The test is already available in parts of Europe and is currently under review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The test is designed for couples who have been trying to conceive but are not yet ready to pursue professional evaluation. According to Dr. John C. Herr of the University of Virginia, who helped create the product, the test offers couples a way to determine whether male factors may be contributing to infertility—privately, conveniently, and without needing to schedule a full clinical assessment.
In a study published in Human Reproduction, Herr and his team compared the accuracy of the new SpermCheck Fertility test with standard laboratory methods using 225 semen samples. The home test showed an accuracy rate of 96 percent, and in 95 percent of cases, both laboratory professionals and lay users interpreted the results the same way.
The test works by detecting SP-10, a protein found on the surface of sperm cells that Herr and his colleagues discovered. The research and development process, supported in part by the National Institutes of Health, spanned nearly a decade.
SpermCheck Fertility provides results based on established thresholds:
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Normal sperm counts are defined as 20 million sperm per milliliter or higher.
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The test indicates whether a man meets this benchmark, and if not, whether his count falls into a severely low range.
If both test indicators are negative, Herr advises seeking medical evaluation to explore fertility treatment options.
Unlike at-home pregnancy or ovulation kits, the process for sperm testing involves a few extra steps. After collecting a semen sample, users let it rest for 20 minutes, then measure a small portion with a pipette. The sample is mixed with a buffer solution that releases the SP-10 protein, and drops are placed into two sample wells. Within about seven minutes, the results appear in the test windows.
Source: Human Reproduction, February 2010
