Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30632487›Full record

ArticleAsian journal of andrology

Critical evaluation of two models of flow cytometers for the assessment of sperm DNA fragmentation: an appeal for performance verification.

Rakesh Sharma, Sajal Gupta, Ralf Henkel, Ashok Agarwal

Open access · goldAbstract readComparative StudyEvaluation Study
In one paragraph

Article in Asian journal of andrology. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
1.8field-weighted citation impact, top 16% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.

Rakesh SharmaAmerican Center for Reproductive Medicine, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA.
Sajal GuptaAmerican Center for Reproductive Medicine, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA.
Ralf HenkelAmerican Center for Reproductive Medicine, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA.
Ashok AgarwalAmerican Center for Reproductive Medicine, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA.
American Society for Reproductive Medicine · USCleveland Clinic · US

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Lack of standardized, reproducible protocols and reference values is among the challenges faced when using new or upgraded versions of instruments in reproductive laboratories and flow cytometry. Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) assay combined with flow cytometry routinely used for diagnostic measurement of sperm DNA fragmentation (SDF) is a unique example. Any change in the setting of the standard instrument, including upgrades of hardware or software, can lead to different results and may affect clinicians' decision for treatment. Therefore, we compared TUNEL results of SDF obtained from a standard (C6) flow cytometer with a newer version of the same instrument (C6 Plus) and examined the cutoff, sensitivity, and specificity without calibration (adjustment) and after adjustment. Identical sperm preparation and matched acquisition settings were used to examine the performance of two flow cytometers. The strength of agreement of the results between the two observers was also assessed. After adjustment of the settings, overall concordance became high and the two cytometers showed 100% positive and negative predictive value with 100% area under the curve. The overall correlation coefficient observed between C6 and C6 Plus was highly significant (P < 0.0001; r = 0.992; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.982-0.997). After adjustment, the two cytometers showed very high precision of 98% and accuracy of >99%. The interobserver agreement on C6 flow cytometer for the two observers was 0.801 ± 0.062 and 0.746 ± 0.044 for C6 Plus. We demonstrated a strong agreement between the samples tested on the two flow cytometers after calibration and established the robustness of both instruments.

Indexed as

DNA FragmentationAdultCalibrationFlow CytometryHumansIn Situ Nick-End LabelingMaleObserver VariationReference ValuesReproducibility of ResultsSemen AnalysisSensitivity and SpecificitySpermatozoaDNA fragmentationflow cytometeroxidative stressspermTUNEL assay

Identifiers

PMID30632487
PMCPMC6732896
OpenAlexW2909204854

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC-SA
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.