Q: I am a 34 years old man who got my semen analysis done. The findings are as follows - Opalescent white colour, musty viscosity odour, liquefaction, total sperm count – 38 million / ml, Active motile – 55%, sluggishly motile – 5% and non motile – 40%, total active motile sperm – 42 million, morphology (normal – 75% and abnormal – 25%), sperm agglutination test – positive, fructose test – positive, Cells:- pus cell - 25-30/hpf; red cells - 7-8/hpf epithelial cell - nil. What does my semen analysis indicate?

A:It requires only one sperm for conception. Semen analysis has to be seen in context of the clinical problem, which you have not enumerated in your query. I suppose your semen analysis was done for male infertility problem. Sperm count measures the concentration of sperm in a man's ejaculate, and anything over 20 million sperm per milliliter is considered normal. Good forward motility of approximately 60% observed sperms in the ejaculate is normal, with a minimum of 8 million sperms per ml showing good forward motility. However, if the sperm count is very high, then a motility of less than 60% might not matter, because the fraction might still be more than 8 million per ml. Normal morphology of 30% of observed sperms could be normal with old 1989 WHO criteria, but even 14% normal morphology would be acceptable with stricter Tygerberg criteria. A liquifaction time of 30 minutes or more and plenty of pus cells may indicate presence of infection in the semen. Your semen, thus, would be classified as normal on most counts, apart from pyuria or possibility of infection.