1. Sperm quality is not affected by the BNT162b2 mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccine: results of a 6-14 months follow-up.
- Author
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Karavani G, Chill HH, Meirman C, Gutman-Ido E, Herzberg S, Tzipora T, Imbar T, and Ben-Meir A
- Subjects
- Male, Humans, BNT162 Vaccine, Semen, RNA, Messenger, Retrospective Studies, Follow-Up Studies, SARS-CoV-2, Spermatozoa, COVID-19 Vaccines, COVID-19 prevention & control
- Abstract
Purpose: We aimed to investigate the possible effect of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination on sperm quality by evaluating semen analyses of men prior to vaccination and 6-14 months after vaccination., Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study, conducted in a university-affiliated in vitro fertilization center between October 2021 and March 2022, including men not previously infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus who received at least 2 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2) SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Semen analyses of samples given pre-vaccination and 6-14 months post-vaccination were analyzed for the parameters of volume, concentration, motility, morphology, and total motile count (TMC) and compared. These parameters were also compared separately for men who received a third (booster) dose and for men with pre-vaccination normal and abnormal sperm. Correlations between time from vaccination and post-vaccination sperm parameters were also assessed., Results: Fifty-eight men were included in the final analysis. Semen volume (2.9 ± 1.4 vs. 2.9 ± 1.6 ml), sperm concentration (42.9 ± 37.9 vs. 51.5 ± 46.2 million/ml), motility (42.5 ± 23.1 vs. 44.3 ± 23.4 percent), morphology (8.8 ± .16.6 vs. 6.6 ± 8.8 percent), and TMC (55.7 ± 57.9 vs. 71.1 ± 77.1 million) were comparable between the pre- and post-vaccination samples. This was true for the entire study cohort, for the subgroup of men who received a third dose and for the subgroups of men with a pre-vaccination normal and abnormal semen samples. No correlation was found between time from vaccination and post-vaccination sperm parameters., Conclusions: The Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2) SARS-CoV-2 vaccine does not impair any of the sperm parameters over a relatively long-time interval of 6 to 14 months from vaccination., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)
- Published
- 2022
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