Establishment and validation of a 5-factor diagnostic model for obstructive and non-obstructive azoospermia based on routine clinical parameters

Abstract

Azoospermia is a serious leading male-factor cause of infertility in couples of childbearing age. The two main azoospermia types, obstructive (OA) and non-obstructive (NOA) azoospermia, differ in their treatment approaches. Therefore, their clinical diagnosis is extremely important, requiring an accurate, efficient, and easy-to-use diagnostic model. This retrospective observational study included 707 patients with azoospermia treated between 2017 and 2021, 498 with OA, and 209 with NOA. Hematological and seminal plasma parameters, hormone levels, and testicular volume were used in logistic regression analysis to evaluate and compare their diagnostic performance, results showed that the optimal diagnostic model is constructed by five variables including semen volume, semen pH, seminal plasma neutral α-glucosidase activity, follicle-stimulating hormone in the serum, and testicular volume, compared with follicle-stimulating hormone-based and testicular volume-based models. The 5-factor diagnostic model had an accuracy of 90.4%, sensitivity of 96.4%, positive predictive value of 90.6%, negative predictive value of 89.8%, and area under the curve of 0.931, all higher than in the other two models. However, its specificity (76.1%) was slightly lower than in the other models. Meantime, the internal 5-fold cross-validation results indicated that the 5-factor diagnostic model had a good clinical application value. This study established an accurate, efficient, and relatively accessible 5-factor diagnostic model for OA and NOA, providing a reference for clinical decision-making when selecting an appropriate treatment.