Comparison of the in vitro fertilization rate by human sperm capacitated by multiple-tube swim-up and Percoll gradient centrifugation.

Two sperm preparation methods, a multiple-tube swim-up and Percoll-gradient centrifugation, were employed in our human in vitro fertilization program. The fertilization rate of these two sperm preparation methods was compared when they were employed in semen samples of less than 60 million motile sperm/ml. The results described here suggest that both of these methods gave a similar fertilization rate in these semen samples, i.e., 72 +/- 8% for the Percoll-gradient centrifugation method and 66 +/- 8% for the multiple-tube swim-up method.