Meiotic studies in a series of 1100 infertile and sterile males

Meiotic studies have been carried out in a series of 1100 infertile and sterile males. Of these, 599 cases have been studies in testicular biopsy, and 501, in semen samples. This is the largest meiotic series published so far. The incidence of meiotic anomalies was 4.3%. The most frequent chromosome abnormality was desynapsis (3.7%). However, the number of cases with a meiotic arest, usually due (73.9%) to synaptic anomalies in prophase I, was much higher (18.4%). An attempt is made to correlate the incidence of meiotic anomalies with the results of semen analysis. We discuss the prognosis of desynapsis, based on 41 cases studied, and reevaluate the results obtained in semen samples as compared with our previous results. © 1983 Springer-Verlag.