Background: Chlamydia trachomatis
(CT) with damaging effects on sperm quality
parameters can often cause infertility in men.
Objective: The main objective of this study was to determine the diagnostic value of
polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and enzyme linked immuno sorbent assay
(ELISA) for screening and detecting CT in semen samples of infertile men.
Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 465 men referring to the
clinical laboratory of Royan Institute were chosen for primary screening and
detection of the presence of CT. 93 samples were normozoospermia with normal
sperm parameters i.e. sperm number, motility and morphology (Asymptomatic) and
372 had abnormal sperm parameters (Symptomatic) in semen analysis. ELISA test
was performed as the screening test. Samples with optical density (OD) >0.200 were
selected as the case and asymptomatic samples with OD <0.200 were selected as the
control group for the confirmatory test. PCR assay was used to confirm the
serological results.
Results: In the case groups (n=62), 4 out of 32 symptomatic samples (12.5%), and 1
out of 30 asymptomatic samples (3.3%) revealed positive results in PCR. No PCR
positive sample was observed in the control group (n=34). The final results revealed
that considering OD >0.400 as the ELISA positive, the diagnostic value of CT-ELISA
positive in symptomatic and asymptomatic infertile patients were 0.019 (7 of
372) and 0.021 (2 of 93), respectively. There was no relationship between the
presence of CT infection and different sperm abnormalities.
Conclusion: The anti-CT IgA ELISA test may be introduced as an appropriate tool
for screening purpose in the seminal plasma to select suspicious samples for PCR
confirmatory tests.
