Detection of Chlamydia trachomatis in semen by antibody-enzyme immunoassay compared with polymerase chain reaction, antigenenzyme immunoassay, and urethral cell culture

Prevalence of sexually transmissible pathogens in semen from asymptomatic male infertility patients with and without leukocytospermia

“…Our study found CT DNA in semen from 2.5% of infertility patients, with copy numbers ranging from 8,300 to 590,000. This prevalence rate is consistent with earlier publications (32,75,76). CT DNA was associated with a significant decrease in neutral α-glucosidase concentration (and a trend towards lower total sperm and total motile sperm counts).…”

Chlamydia Trachomatis Detected by Ligase Chain Reaction in the Semen of Asymptomatic Patients Without Pyospermia or Pyuria

“…The fact that C. trachomatis was detected only in the semen specimens may indicate an asymptomatic infection of the accessory gland. The low incidence (1.02%) of chlamydia in our study is in contrast to those of other reports [3,7,8,11]. The reason for this may be the difference of the patient population studied.…”

IgA ANTIBODIES TOCHLAMYDIA TRACHOMATISAND SEMINAL PARAMETERS IN ASYMPTOMATIC INFERTILE MALES

“…This value is similar to that of Wolff et al [35] of 27% and it is higher than the values reported by Ludwig et al [21] and Ochsendorf et al [25], 7 and 9%, respectively. However, other authors have reported prevalences higher than the percentage found in this study: Nikkanen, 51% [24]; Bjerke, 31% [3]; and Muñoz, 42% [22].…”

“…On the other hand, C. trachomatis may adhere to and penetrate the sperm, causing infection and, later on, infertility by decreasing motility and/or sperm count [10]. However, this seems to be related to the inflammatory process that occurs during the acute phase of male reproductive tract infections [5,26,29,35]. In this and other studies [11,12,16] an association between the presence of antichlamydial IgA antibodies in ejaculate and some seminal variables such as sperm count and motility in semen was not found.…”

“…However, it is controversial whether or not asymptomatic genital infection may cause male infertility. This may be due to the difficulties in diagnosing the microorganism, since antigens are not usually detected in semen, and IgA and IgC serodiagnosis has a low reproducibility rate in acute infection [9,25,31,35]. Antichlamydial IgA detection in seminal plasma is a highly specific test for C. trachomatis diagnosis that has good agreement with other speciesspecific methods, such as ELISA, and more sensitivity than microimmunofluorescence [4,25].…”