Amelie Stenqvist from Lund University and colleagues from Denmark and Sweden conducted a prospective cohort study and found that sperm defects during assisted reproductive technologies (IVF and ICSI) are associated with an increased risk of preeclampsia and premature birth. The analysis included data from 1,594 infertile couples and their 1,660 children conceived using IVF or ICSI from the Swedish National Birth Registry. The quality of the sperm used for this was assessed by the DNA fragmentation index. The results were published in the journal Fertility and Sterility.
It was found that starting from the DNA fragmentation level of ten percent, the probability of preeclampsia in IVF (but not ICSI) dose-dependently increases from 3.1 to more than ten percent with a fragmentation index of 30 percent or more. The odds ratio (OR) of this complication with an index of 20 percent or more compared with less than 20 percent was 2.2 (95 percent confidence interval 1.1–4.4). In addition, in both IVF and ICSI, a sperm DNA fragmentation index of 20 percent or more was associated with an increased risk of preterm birth (OR 1.4; 95 percent confidence interval 1.0–2.0).