All you need to know about CASA

Starting a family isn’t always an easy task, and fertility isn’t just a concern for women. If you’ve been trying to build your family for a year and nothing turned progressive, it might be an alert to seek medical support. Your doctor may recommend semen analysis with other procedures or tests, as one-third of the infertility cases reveal that there’s a problem with the man. What is a semen analysis? Why do you need one? What happens if your results aren’t normal?

Semen analysis is the best option to start to help evaluate male fertility.

So – what is it all about? A semen analysis is a test that inspects your semen under a microscope to assess your sperm health. It reveals essential information about sperm count, morphology, and motility. The quality of semen can differ daily, so your fertility specialist may conduct two or three different analyses for two weeks or even months to get a fair idea of your sperm health.

A standard semen analysis will provide only a couple of parameters such as:

• volume of ejaculate

• Sperm concentration

• Motility (movement of sperm)

• pH (the acidity of the fluid)

• Morphology (appearance of the sperm)

Computer Assisted Semen Analysis (CASA) is an advanced semen analysis technique that provides fast and precise results. It analyzes the sperm based on image analysis. Most major spermatology labs and semen processing units have a CASA system, but the extent of reliance thereon ranges widely. CASA provides immediate and objective sperm concentration and motility results in a complete report. An accurate morphological analysis of each spermatozoid is provided in real-time. CASA can also help perform specific specialized tests like sperm vitality & sperm DNA fragmentation index.

After 40 years, CASA has been widely accepted by the animal reproduction community, both for use in production units and for research on basic sperm biology. The basics of CASA technology have stood the test of time. Still, advances in imaging and computing technologies have ‘compressed time,’ so users obtain many motion traits for hundreds of sperm almost instantaneously. All these advantages would lead to a better male infertility diagnosis and consequently treatment, or decision making. Thus, Computer Assisted Semen Analysis (CASA) is a great solution for male infertility complaints.