• Asdrubal Falavigna, Pedro G da Silva, Lucas P Conzatti, Louise M Corbellini, Caroline S Cagliari, and Fabio F Pasqualotto.
• Department of Neurosurgery, University of Caxias do Sul, Caxias do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Electronic address: asdrubalmd@gmail.com.
• World Neurosurg. 2018 May 1; 113: e232-e238.

BackgroundInfertility is one of many complications of spinal cord injury (SCI) in male patients, who are often at the peak of their reproductive life. This study evaluated effects of hyperbaric therapy (HT) on quality of sperm of rats with SCI and correlated the findings with histologic analysis of the testicles.MethodsThis experimental study comprised 18 rats that were submitted to SCI with a MASCIS Impactor and randomly allocated to either a HT or a control group. Testicular biopsies were performed on the first and 28th day of the study; 4 parameters were evaluated: concentration of sperm per mL, number of round cells per field, number of inflammatory cells per field (peroxidase [Endtz] test), and sperm viability (hypo-osmotic swelling test).ResultsThere was no difference in sperm concentration between the HT group (P = 0.41) and control group (P = 0.74) during 28 days. From day 1 to day 28, sperm viability decreased twice as much in the control group (P = 0.001) compared with the HT group (P = 0.017). There was no difference between the groups in mean sperm concentration and number of round and inflammatory cells. On the first day, there was no difference in sperm viability between groups. There was a significantly higher (P = 0.001) percentage of viable sperm in the HT group (86.8 ± 5.6) compared with the control group (48.8 ± 21.8) on day 28.ConclusionsSCI increased the number of round and inflammatory cells and diminished sperm viability in both groups. HT promoted greater sperm viability in rats with SCI.Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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