Evaluation of the urine collector in the collection of the seminal fluid sample and differential fluorescent staining method in sperm

Objective: To verify that urine collectors are not toxic to sperm. Methods: The toxicity of glass (control) and plastic (urine collector) containers with semen samples of good concentration and sperm motility was evaluated by studying sperm motility at intervals of 1 hour, at room temperature, for 4 hours, following guidelines of the fifth edition of the World Health Organization Manual for the processing of semen samples. The progressive motility between both types of containers (glass and plastic) was compared and the morphotintorial characteristics of the spermatozoa were evaluated with the modified fluorescence differential stain. Results: No statistically significant differences (p = 0.334) were found between the groups. Spermatozoa that emitted a green fluorescence were categorized as normal and presented a strong correlation (r = 1,000; p = 0.000); Whereas, yellow (r = -0.838, p = 0.009) and orange (r = 0.940, p = 0.000) stains were highly correlated with sperm abnormalities, highlighting that orange fluorescence had a high correlation (r = 0.940, p = 0.000) with head abnormalities. Conclusion: The plastic collector has no toxic effects on sperm, it satisfies the needs of collection of the semen sample. With modified fluorescence differential staining, green staining is associated with morphologically normal spermatozoa and yellow and orange stains are associated with abnormalities of the head, middle piece, and main piece of sperm.