Scientists at Harvard recently developed a smartphone app that is able to accurately test for male fertility.
The researchers developed a smartphone attachment that can be used in order to provide a very inexpensive and easy method for consumers to conduct their own fertility tests at home. The users are able to use the tool and receive a result within just a few seconds.
The study involved at least 350 participants and they realized that their smartphone was able to detect abnormal samples from the males with at least 98 percent accuracy.
Details from their research is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
The test analyzes the sample based on three criteria:
- sperm count per milliliter of fluid
- motility (how many are active)
- morphology (their shape).
The phone also uses the smartphone hardware in order to conduct the test, this means that it doesn't need to send the data anywhere else before analyzing it. And researchers admit that this was one of the challenges to their research, trying to conduct the entire analysis on the phone rather than sending that data to a more powerful computer elsewhere.
Researchers of the project say that this smartphone attachment they've created is going to help make home fertility testing for males, just as easy as it would be for any female to do a home pregnancy test.
Not everyone has the time or money to go about getting traditional tests done that look toward analyzing fertility. So this smartphone app provides a much more cost-effective solution for them in giving them something that they can do easily and in the comfort of their own home.
These Harvard researchers also aren't the first ones to develop this sort of technology. A market-ready product is already available by Medical Electronic Systems, called the YO Home Sperm Test, and you can purchase it for around $49.95. However, researchers of the Harvard project question the accuracy of that test. They allege that the YO analysis method might give inaccurate results in labeling samples positive when they shouldn't be.
Though the new development by the scientists at Harvard isn't the first at-home male fertility test to market, it is the first test that is both compact and is able to test for both sperm count and motility.
Pics:
Pixabay
M. K. Kanakasabapathy/Science Transitional Medicine
Sources:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/devices/smartphone-test-male-fertility
http://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/harvard-researchers-develop-low-cost-smartphone-based-male-fertility-test
http://ca.askmen.com/news/sports/smartphone-app-lets-men-check-their-fertility-for-cheap.html