Therapeutic ultrasound as a potential male contraceptive: power, frequency and temperature required to deplete rat testes of meiotic cells and epididymides of sperm determined using a commercially available system

Table 4 Testis temperatures and sperm parameters from Study 1

Group	Treatment	n	Testis temperature (°C)	Sperm count (10⁶)	Motility (%)
1	Sham	2	30.1 ± 0.8	380 ± 33	45 ± 3
2	Wet heat	3	42.6 ± 0.1	23 ± 4	22 ± 5.8
3	Low freq., high power	3	40.5 ± 1.2	84 ± 3 §	54 ± 2
4	High freq., high power	3	41.8 ± 0.6	1.9 ± 0.9 †	0.3 ± 0.3
5	High freq., high power, Na+	4	nd	1.5 ± 0.8 †	nd
6	Low freq., low power	3	42.1 ± 2.8	96 ± 17 §	39 ± 2
7	Low freq., low power, Na⁺	3	35.4 ± 1.9	51 ± 5	40 ± 2

Sperm analyses were performed two weeks after ultrasound treatment. Average sperm count represents millions of sperm per cauda epididymis ± SEM. % Motility represents the percentage of recovered sperm with forward motility ± SEM. The average maximum testis temperature during treatment is listed in degrees Celsius ± SEM. Not determined (nd). §, statistically greater than the wet-heat control (Group 2) by Tukey's post-test (p < 0.001). †, statistically lower than 1 MHz, high power (Group 3) and 1 MHz, low power (Group 6) by Tukey's post-test (p < 0.001).

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