Background
The possible effects of COVID-19 vaccines on reproductive health and male fertility in particular have been discussed intensely by the scientific community and the public since their introduction during the pandemic. On news outlets and social media platforms, many claims have been raised regarding the deleterious effects of COVID-19 vaccines on sperm quality without scientific evidence. In response to this emerging conflict, we designed this study to evaluate and assess the effect of the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA COVID-19 vaccine on male fertility represented by the semen analysis parameters.
Results
Comparing the semen parameters of the participants before and after vaccination, no statistically significant effects on semen volume, pH or normal sperm concentration and morphology were shown. However, there were statistically significant differences on total sperm motility (P = 0.05) and progressive motility (P = 0.02). These differences are clinically insignificant given the fact that both readings before and after vaccination were within the normal ranges, according to the WHO manual guidelines for the examination and processing of human semen.
Conclusion
Our data suggest that the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA COVID-19 vaccine has no deleterious effects on semen parameters.
Extract The September ESHRE Journal Club discussed a paper from Lensen et al. (2021) about the prevalence and pattern of add-on use in ART. The paper was based on an online national survey in Australia for women having ART treatment over a 3-year period. Survey questions covered demographics, IVF history and the use of IVF add-ons. This survey showed that 82% of the 1590 eligible patients have used at least one add-on during treatment and usually at an additional cost (72% of cases). The majority of patients shared the decision of add-on use with their fertility specialist and placed a high level of importance on safety and efficacy based on scientific evidence. The study also highlighted a high proportion of patient regret (83%) after unsuccessful treatments and when the specialist had a larger contribution in the decision to use add-ons (75%). Due to large add-on utilization, it was interesting for Journal Club participants to discuss whether their use is supported by scientific evidence and how this evidence is disseminated. What is the regulatory framework around add-on use and what are patients' perspectives? The ESHRE Journal Club with 45 participants, experts Raj Mathur and Christos Venetis, as well as a representative from the patient association Fertility Europe, discussed the topic on Twitter; >800k impressions were recorded over the 24-h period.
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