FRIDAY, Feb. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Infertile men have twice the rate of cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator (CFTR) gene mutations as men without infertility, according to study findings published in the January issue of Fertility and Sterility.
Solveig Schulz, M.D., of the Otto-von-Guericke-University in Magdeburg, Germany, and colleagues screened a large population of German males with reduced sperm quality to better assess this association.
The investigators found 5.7% of 597 fertility clinic patients had one defective CFTR allele, but since the test only recognizes 82% of the possible CFTR mutations, they estimated the real mutation rate to be 6.94%. This is about two times higher than the expected rate of 3.42% in the general population.
CFTR mutation did not correlate with sperm count so the authors conclude that "genetic counseling of patients before intracytoplasmic sperm injection therapy should include the possibility of CFTR mutation screening."
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