Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com Introduction Infertility, considered as one of the main public health issues, afects about 10%-15% of the couples in reproductive age. Male factors are known to be responsible for 50% of all infertilities. It is well-established that the chromosomal abnormality is more prevalent in infertile men than in fertile men. 1 In developed countries, the incidence factor is considered to be less, when compared to underdeveloped countries. 2 Male factor infertility includes chromosome and gene abnormalities, hormonal problems, genital infections, chemical and physical agents, varicose, genito-urinary obstruction, testicular dysfunction, etc. In addition, genetic abnormalities are suspected to result in male infertilities in about one-third of the cases, referred to as idiopathic. There is a clear correlation between genetic abnormalities and infertility; some chromosomal aberrations are inherited, while others result from de novo mutations. This can lead to the reduction or even loss in sperm production. Importantly, the latter may result in a chromosomally-abnormal zygote, leading to either fetal death or the birth of an abnormal child. 3 It should be noted that the primary mutational event in the stem cells could arise from structural abnormalities, including deletions, translocations or inversions, during mitotic and meiotic divisions. 4 Male infertility work up is a complex process that should include a past medical history, physical examination, hormonal assay, semen count and analysis and karyotype. 5 It is rather established that there is an increase in the frequency of chromosomal abnormalities in infertile men, as compared to fertile men. Because there are various procedures for the cytogenetic analysis as well as clinically-heterogeneous patients, most studies have reported a wide range of chromosomal abnormal frequencies, ranging from 5.9 to 17.1%, as shown in Table 2. 6–12 In this light, the present study was mainly aimed to investigate the possible cytogenetic abnormalities that result in azoospermia and oligospermia in infertile men. Materials and methods A total of 433 patients with infertility problems were included in this cross-sectional study, and assessed retrospectively. All these cases, referred to Molecular Pathology and Cytogenetic ward of Department of Pathology, Shiraz University of Medical Science, Iran, during the 3-year period from June 2011 to August 2014, were included in the fnal analysis, except for patients without metaphase or karyotype information. The patients’ age varied between 18 and 60 years old, with a mean age of 33.6 years old. Ethical approval was obtained from the Local Research Ethics Committee of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences; written informed consent was obtained from all study participants prior to enrolment into the study. The patients were divided into two groups, the Azoospermic group with the absence of sperm cells, and oligozoospermic group with sperm concentration of less than 20 million/ml. The incidence of chromosomal abnormalities was investigated by the G banding method in azoospermic and oligospermic infertile men. (Azoospermic group with 169 cases and oligospermic group with 264 cases). Although the chromosomal abnormalities exhibited various patterns in the oligozoospermia and azoospermia patients, the fndings demonstrated that an increase in J Cancer Prev Curr Res. 2016;6(3):479‒482. 479 ©2016 Rekabi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestrited use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially. Cytogenetic analysis in infertile male patients with oligospermia and azoospermia in the southern region of Iran, Shiraz Volume 6 Issue 3 - 2016 Vahab Rekabi, 1,2 Ahmad Monabati, 1 Sadat Noori, 2 Akbar safaei 2 1 Department of pathology and hematology research center, Shiraz University of Medical sciences, Iran 2 Department of pathology, molecular pathology and cytogenetic ward, Shiraz University of Medical sciences, Iran Correspondence: Vahab Rekabi, Fellowship of molecular pathology and cytogenetic, Shiraz University of Medical sciences, Iran, Tel +989123247864, Fax 7132301784, Email Received: September 06, 2016 | Published: December 14, 2016 Abstract Background: Infertility was found to afect approximately 10%-15% of the couples, worldwide. Male factors are responsible for at least 50% of the infertility cases. The chromosomal abnormality is more common in infertile men than in fertile men. However, the aim of this study was to evaluate the frequency and type of major chromosomal abnormalities in the infertile men with problems in their sperm count, who had been referred to cytogenetic center in Shiraz, the main referral center in southern Iran. Materials and Methods: A total of 433 infertile males, with azoospermia [169(31%)] and oligospermia [264(69%)], were included in this prospective observational study. Samples were retrospectively collected from the infertile males, and examined by karyotype analysis. Results: The fndings revealed that there are 17.3% chromosomal problems, in which 14.3% and 3% of all cases exhibited numerical and structural abnormalities, respectively. Among the 433 infertile patients, 57(33%) exhibited a numerical sex chromosome abnormality, including 49 (11.3%) subjects with typical Klinefelter syndrome, 4 (2.95%) ones with structural sex chromosome and 11 (4.4%) ones with the autosomal chromosome abnormality. Conclusion: The results from this study demonstrated that chromosomal abnormalities are common in the infertile men with a higher frequency of sex chromosomal abnormality, especially those with the numerical type. This highlights the importance of karyotype fndings to make appropriate decisions regarding the management of the patients in infertility clinics. Keywords: infertility, cytogenetic analysis, azoospermia, oligospermia Journal of Cancer Prevention & Current Research Research Article Open Access