Comparison of the tray agglutination technique with the gelatin agglutination technique for the detection of spermagglutinating activity in human sera.

Extensive comparisons were made between the tray agglutination test (TAT) and the gelatin agglutination test (GAT) in order to evaluate the validity of the TAT for demonstrating spermagglutinating activity in human sera. The incidence of spermagglutination in both tests was about the same. In screening 118 samples from infertile men and women, the TAT seemed to be more sensitive, whereas the reverse was true when 143 samples earlier found positive with the GAT were tested. These differences were mainly encountered with low titers. Two T-agglutinating sera (or 2% of the sera) with a GAT titer of 16 or more (both had a titer of 64) were missed with the TAT. On the other hand, two sera (or 2% of the screened samples) having small H-agglutinates up to a titer of 32 to 64 were positive only with the TAT.