Does mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccine detrimentally affect male fertility, as reflected by semen analysis?
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Authors
Lifshitz, Dror
Haas, Jigal
Lebovitz, Oshrit
Raviv, Gil
Orvieto, Raoul
Aizera, Adva
Issue Date
2021-10-04
Type
Article
Language
en_US
Keywords
COVID-19 , Semen Parameters , Male Fertility , Pfizer
Alternative Title
Abstract
Research question:
Does Pfizer's coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination detrimentally affect semen analysis parameters?
Design:
A prospective cohort study was conducted at a single large tertiary centre in Israel between February and March of 2021. Semen samples from 75 fertile men were analysed 1–2 months following their second dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine. The semen parameters were compared with the World Health Organization (WHO) reference ranges. The primary outcome was the percentage of abnormal semen parameters in those who were vaccinated, i.e. the rates of oligozoospermia, reduced percentage of motile spermatozoa and abnormal sperm morphology.
Results:
The interval from the time of the second vaccination to the date of participation was on average 37 days, with most subjects describing either mild or no side effects after the first or second dose. The mean sperm concentration was 63.2 ± 33.6 × 106/ml, with only a single participant (1.3%) with a sperm count of 12.5 × 106/ml, considered by the WHO to be oligozoospermic. The mean sperm motility percentage was 64.5 ± 16.7%, with only a single man (1.3%) displaying reduced motility. No notable morphological abnormalities were observed. This constituted a lower percentage of abnormal semen parameters compared with the 5% rates reported in fertile men by the WHO.
Conclusions:
The semen parameters following COVID-19 vaccination were predominantly within the normal reference ranges as set by the WHO and do not reflect any causative detrimental effect from COVID-19 vaccination. The results strengthen the notion that the Pfizer's severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccine is safe and should be recommended to men wishing to conceive.
Description
Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
Citation
Lifshitz, D., Haas, J., Lebovitz, O., Raviv, G., Orvieto, R., & Aizer, A. (2022). Does mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccine detrimentally affect male fertility, as reflected by semen analysis?. Reproductive biomedicine online, 44(1), 145–149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rbmo.2021.09.021
Publisher
Reproductive Biomedicine Online