CASE 14. Infertility in a male dog
Case Information: The owner of a 6 year old intact male Australian Shepherd calls you. This male sired one litter when he was 3 years of age and has missed six bitches since then. Semen was collected about one year ago; motility was poor and total number of spermatozoa in the ejaculate was low. The dog was treated with antibiotics to no effect. Since then, the dog has undergone seminal fluid culture (aerobic, anaerobic and mycoplasma cultures all negative), brucellosis testing (negative) and ultrasound of the testes and prostate (no abnormalities noted). You collect semen; no spermatozoa are present. Alkaline phosphatase concentration is over 15,000 IU/L.
Question:
What is the significance of the alkaline phosphatase concentration?
Answer:
Alkaline phosphatase (ALP) in seminal fluid comes from the epididymis. If a semen sample contains no spermatozoa and ALP is low (less than 5000 IU/L), blockage may be present or the dog may have been painful or apprehensive and not given a complete ejaculate. If there are no spermatozoa in the ejaculate and ALP is high, prognosis is poor because you know you got fluid from the testes and epididymes and the dog is not making any spermatozoa.
Question:
What do you do next?
Answer:
Testicular biopsy may be called for. If the testes contain no spermatogonia, prognosis for future fertility is grave. The image on the left a histologic section of a normal testis. The image on the right is a histologic section from a testis containing no spermatogonia or developing spermatids.
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