Table 1

Advantages and disadvantages of the conventional swim-up method.

Advantages
Disadvantages

- easy to perform
- restricted to ejaculates with high sperm count and motility
- very cost-effective

- usually recovery of a very clean fraction of highly motile spermatozoa
- low yield

- spermatozoa can be massively damaged by reactive oxygen species

- significant decrease of the percentage of normally chromatin-condensed spermatozoa

Henkel and Schill Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology 2003 1:108   doi:10.1186/1477-7827-1-108