With male infertility reportedly reaching an alarming high of 50 per cent in Coimbatore, a centre in the city is offering a first-of-its-kind procedure that can ascertain damage to DNA strands in about 5,000 sperm cells at the rate of 200 per second.

Set up in collaboration with SCSA (Sperm Chromatin Structure Assay) Diagnostics, US, Women’s Centre will accept semen samples from across the country to diagnose DNA fragmentation, considered the most important aspect of male infertility.

Explaining the partnership, Dr Donald Evenson, inventor of the technique, said Women’s Centre was the only centre outside US and Europe with rights to offer the diagnostic device, considered a solution for couples unable to conceive.

Dr Mirudhubashini Govindarajan, clinical director of the centre, said damage to DNA that lowered sperm count or hindered sperm movement could be due to lifestyle-related factors.

She said stress at workplace and handling chemicals, pesticides in agricultural belts were some of the causes.

People in the jewellery industry who handle heavy metals such as cadmium and traffic police exposed to too much heat were increasingly experiencing the problem of infertility, Dr Govindarajan said.

She said semen analysis technology in India was inadequate and women underwent a series of tests but often never conceived despite normal results.

She said Women’s Centre would tie up with IVF labs to share the method of sending semen samples for DNA fragmentation diagnoses

source: http://www.DeccanChronicle.com / Home> Channels> Cities> Regions> Coimbatore / by Vidyashree Charmaraj / DC, Coimbatore / Saturday, March 17th, 2012