Teratospermia

Teratospermia, also called teratozoospermia, is a male fertility condition in which a high share of sperm have abnormal shape. The cause is unknown in most cases, although Hodgkin's disease, coeliac disease, Crohn's disease, varicocele and lifestyle factors such as smoking or toxin exposure may contribute. Abnormal sperm can have heads that are large, small, tapered or pyriform, or oddly shaped tails, and they can fail to pass through the cervix or to attach to the egg, which makes pregnancy harder to achieve. It is diagnosed by staining and examining collected sperm under a microscope. Antiestrogens have been shown to help, and intracytoplasmic sperm injection can be used, since abnormal morphology does not appear to affect embryo development once fertilization occurs.