On this page, you can learn about our MOT (motility) system, types of straws and how we determine the sperm quality in our laboratories to ensure our high quality and standards.
Donor sperm motility at Cryos
MOT is the concentration of motile sperm cells pr. milliliter sperm. We offer a variety of straws with different motility to match your preference and the type of treatments your clinic performs. You and your patients can order straws with MOT2, MOT5, MOT10, MOT20 and MOT30+. Please note that MOT2 is only recommended for ICSI.
Most of Cryos’ sperm straws contain 0.5 milliliters sperm. Therefore, if you buy MOT20 sperm straws, the straws will contain at least 20 million motile sperm pr. milliliter, which corresponds to at least 10 million active sperm cells after thawing each straw. However, few of our straws contain 0.4 milliliters sperm and are offered with a 20% discount.
IUI-ready or ICI sperm straws?
- Besides choosing your preferred motility, you or your patients must decide between two straw types when ordering donor sperm from Cryos.
- Our IUI-ready straws are for you, if you prefer straws that have been prepared and are ready for an IUI procedure.
- Our unwashed ICI straws are for you if you prefer to prepare the straws at your clinic prior to treatment.
- All straws are prepared with high quality wash, gradient, and freezing media from Irvine Scientific and Gynotec.
- To ensure the quality of the sperm, it is important that you handle the sperm straws in accordance with our guidelines. Take a look at our protocol on how to handle sperm straws.
How we determine and ensure a high sperm quality
When working with Cryos, you always receive a high-quality product from a business partner in compliance with all applicable regulations, international trusted standards, and the quality management system ISO 9001:2015. As an international sperm and egg bank, we take our great responsibility very seriously, as the most important task for us is to ensure high quality products and safe processes for you and your patients.
Ensuring high standards across departments
All Cryos’ staff is trained in the procedures through our own carefully developed training courses built on more than 30 years of experience. This ensures the same high standards across all Cryos laboratories. Furthermore, donors at Cryos are all selected and screened according to our extensive quality assurance, assessment, screening and operational procedures and policies for donor recruitment. Applicants that pass the screening process are then allowed to become Cryos donors.
Determining the quality of a sperm sample
When we receive a sperm sample, we freeze the entire ejaculate in straws. All straws are stored in liquid nitrogen which ensures a stabile temperature of -196 degrees until use. To determine the quality, one straw from each ejaculate will be thawed and analysed. The result of this analysis determines the MOT of the ejaculate.
We determine the sperm quality according to WHO’s Laboratory Manual. In all our laboratories, we use CASA (Computer Assisted Sperm Analyzer) to count the sperm cells via microscopy. We count 500 cells or 5 frames (whichever is achieved first) before determining the result of the analysis. CASA ensures a more consistent count than what is possible through a manual process.
However, sperm is a biological material and extremely sensitive to a number of factors, including temperature. This means that a variance in the exact motility can be expected when comparing two independent analyses of a sperm sample. At Cryos, we accept a difference of 20%.
We always do our best to ensure that the number of active sperm cells equals the stated motility or more (e.g., a MOT10 straw includes at least 10 million active sperm cells per milliliter sperm), and in many cases, the sperm sample will prove to have a higher motility than stated. However, if, after following our straw-handling protocol, the post-thaw count shows a motility that is more than 20% lower than the stated motility of the sperm sample, please fill out this Complaint Form, and we will then, together with our laboratory staff, evaluate your claim. If you have any questions, you are welcome to contact our Clinic Account Team.
With our extensive donor screening programme and thorough sperm sample analyses, we feel confident in our commitment to securing the high Cryos quality standard for each sperm straw.
If you need guidance in relation to motility, please read our recommendations on how to order donor sperm. At Cryos we are always looking to expand our network of high-performing fertility clinics and healthcare professionals around the world. Please reach out to our Clinic Account team to learn more about working with Cryos.