Currently, according to the latest fifth edition of the World Health Organization’s definition of teratozoospermia, a sperm abnormality rate higher than 96% is considered abnormal. In clinical practice, patients whose deformity rate is less than 96% often ask, why is my sperm deformity rate so high? Is this normal?

In fact, regarding this issue, we need to first understand different versions of the World Health Organization’s regulations on high sperm abnormality rates. The fourth version of the WHO believes that when the normal morphological sperm rate is less than 15%, the in vitro fertilization rate will be significantly reduced, and no specific details are given. reference value, but it is generally believed that a sperm abnormality rate higher than 85% is abnormal. The fifth edition of the WHO provides a reference value that considers a sperm abnormality rate higher than 96% to be abnormal.

Why is there such a big difference in sperm abnormality rates between the two versions? This is because the WHO's standards for judging sperm abnormalities have improved. For example, the standard is 100 points, the fourth edition requires 85 points to pass, and the fifth edition requires 96 points to pass.

This situation is just like there are normal people and disabled people in society. Most disabled people in society have normal IQs but have defects in appearance. It’s just that there are relatively more defective sperm in semen.

For semen with a deformity rate of less than 96%, don’t worry too much about sperm deformities, which are within the normal reference range. However, when the sperm deformity rate is higher than 96%, we must pay attention to prevent adverse consequences caused by sperm deformities.