A Comparison of Subjective and Objective Sperm Motility Evaluation

A series of semen samples that had been recorded on motion picture film, then evaluated via standard visual techniques by a number of well established fertility clinics (Van Duijn et al (1971)), was analyzed frame‐by‐frame for sperm motility ratings with the aid of a movie reader‐computer image analysis system. Results of the latter analysis were considered an objective norm. Statistical comparison of the subjective and objective sets of data revealed that sperm % motility could be subjectively rated with reasonable accuracy when the percentage of sperm moving progressively at least 30 μm/second−2 was outside the range of 34–57. Within this range, however, there is a better than 93% chance for an erroneous subjective assessment. When the results of the computer method were compared with those of the spectrophotometric method of Atherton (1975), a poor correlation was obtained, indicating that if the latter method is an accurate measure of motility, it does not discriminate progressive motility.