NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Men with azoospermia are significantly more likely to carry cystic fibrosis gene mutations than men with other causes of infertility, according to research published online on April 9 in Fertility and Sterility.

The Irish research team advises that any azoospermic man providing sperm for intracytoplasmic injection first be screened for cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) mutations.

Dr. Edgar Mocanu of Rotunda Hospital in Dublin and colleagues analyzed the frequency of the 31 most common CFTR mutations in 586 men who had come to them for diagnosis and treatment of infertility, as well as in 116 fertile men. They screened whole blood samples with a multiplex polymerase chain reaction oligonucleotide ligation assay technique.

When the researchers stratified the patients by sperm count, they had 84 men with azoospermia, 116 with extreme oligozoospermia ( 20 million/mL)

Significantly more men with azoospermia were CF carriers (16.7%) compared to men with extreme oligozoospermia (6.8%), severe oligozoospermia (5.2%), oligozoospermia (6.5%), or normozoospermia (6.1%).

The men with azoospermia were also more likely than the fertile men to be CF carriers, although the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.051).

The authors conclude that CFTR testing has no value