Shanghai experts have come up with a new approach that combines big data with artificial intelligence (AI) for diagnosis and treatment of sperm disorders. 

With the help of "big data + AI" technology, an andrology team from Shanghai General Hospital aims to help patients with sperm dysfunction become fathers, news portal thepaper.com reported on Saturday.

The hospital uses big data, which relies on a clinical patient management system that connects several major platforms, such as clinics, laboratories and a sample library, said the report of thepaper.com. 

More than 12,000 patients have undergone diagnosis and treatment with the help of this system in the past three years, accumulating a large amount of clinical data for the hospital.

The hospital could not be reached on Sunday as of press time for further comments.

The team is also developing an AI assisted infertility treatment robot that adopts a friendly human-computer interaction mode to assist fertility doctors in diagnosis and treatment on the basis of deep learning and big data platforms. 

The infertility rate of Chinese couples of childbearing age has climbed from three percent 20 years ago to 15 percent in recent years, half of which were caused by male factors.

Infertility and birth defects caused by disorders in spermatogenesis, including severe sperm deformity and azoospermia, have affected at least five million Chinese families, among which azoospermia accounts for about 20 percent of all the causes of male infertility.

A project involving basic research and clinical application of male infertility caused by disorders of spermatogenesis was led by Li Zheng, deputy director of the Urology Center of Shanghai General Hospital. 

According to the hospital, the research project has successfully explored new pathogenic genes of sperm abnormalities caused by spermatogenic disorders, and has increased the etiological diagnosis rate of multiple morphological abnormalities of the sperm from 44 to 61 percent, according to thepaper.com.

The research results of the project have been promoted and applied in 18 hospitals across China, and over 5,000 patients with spermatogenic disorders have been treated with the help of these accomplishments in recent years, said the report of thepaper.com.