Differential Sperm Motility Scoring and Sperm ATP Concentrations

Sperm motility is one of the most important parameters in semen analysis. In this study the motility scoring method of Hellinga was used. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is the main energy source used by the sperm flagellum to initiate and propagate forward motility. This study was conducted to evaluate the interrelationships between sperm ATP and differential motility. The differential motility method supplemented the conventional by which the quantitative and qualitative motility were estimated. There was a good correlation between the differential motility scoring method and sperm [ATP], although the latter did not necessarily improve the diagnostic capacity.