Semen Cryopreservation to Expand Male Fertility in Cancer Patients: Intracase Evaluation of Semen Quality

Abstract

To preserve male fertility after diagnosis of any kind of cancer, a prompt assessment of the semen quality and an appropriate semen cryopreservation must be performed before radio-chemotherapy starts. The present work aims to evaluate the semen parameters at diagnosis of different cancer patients before cryopreservation and after thawing. Testicular tumors and lymphomas are among the most common cancers in younger patients, and while chemotherapy significantly increases patients’ survival, it can epigenetically alter the semen fluid, resulting in temporary or permanent infertility. We analyzed data from the database of the Gamete Cryopreservation Center (Annunziata Hospital, CS; Italy) in the period of 2011–2020 from a cohort of 254 cancer patients aged 18–56 years. The evaluation was performed in a blind manner and anonymously recovered; the main parameters referring to semen quality were assessed in accordance with the WHO guidelines and decision limits (6th edition; 2021). The cancer types were as follows: testis cancers (TC; n = 135; 53.1%), hematological cancers (HC; n = 76; 29.9%), and other types of cancer (OC; n = 43; 17%). Comparing TC vs. HC (P1) and vs. OC (P2), TC had the worst semen quality: sperm number/mL (P1 = 0.0014; P2 = 0.004), total motility (P1 = 0.02; P2 = 0.07), progressive motility (P1 = 0.04; P2 = 0.05), viability (P1 = 0.01; P2 = 0.02), and percentage of atypical morphology (P1 = 0.05; P2 = 0.03). After semen thawing, viability and progressive motility recovery lowered, accounting for 46.82% and 16.75%, respectively, in the whole cohort; similarly, in the subgroups ascribed to TC, they showed the lowest recovery. Strong correlation existed between pre- and post-cryopreservation viability and progressive motility in the whole cohort (p < 0.001) and in the TC subgroup (p < 0.05). All cancer subgroups, to significantly different extents, had semen findings below the WHO reference values, suggesting diverse sperm susceptibilities to different cancers and cryodamage. Cancer and associated treatments epigenetically affect patients’ semen quality, meaning cryopreservation should be considered a useful personalized prerogative for any kind of cancer in a timely manner.