The physicians, clinical team, and embryology team at Austin Fertility & Reproductive Medicine helped a couple who were in the most challenging of fertility situations have healthy twin children. Men with non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA), having no sperm in the semen due to a lack of sufficient sperm production in the testicles, without an anatomic blockage, did not have very good options to use their sperm to conceive until 1999. The advent of microdissection testicular sperm extraction (microTESE) procedures to microsurgically identify and retrieve small pockets of sperm within the testicles in such men provides an opportunity for pregnancy for cases of NOA. MicroTESE retrieved sperm allows the couple a chance to conceive using the sperm with in vitro fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (IVF/ICSI). With more widespread use of antimüllerian hormone (AMH) testing to assist in the evaluation of a woman’s ovarian reserve, the controversy of appropriate options has arisen for couples with both NOA and diminished ovarian reserve.
With the successful treatment of helping such a couple conceive and have healthy twins with microTESE retrieved sperm and the use of donor eggs for IVF/ICSI at AFRM/Westlake IVF, the team wanted to share the ability to help couples in this scenario and have published a report of this case in the highly regarded peer reviewed scientific Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics. Dr. Parviz Kavoussi comments, “It is very exciting to prove that diminished ovarian reserve should not be a deterrent to offering men with NOA microTESE. We have now shown and published that a couple in this challenging circumstance can be successful with IVF/ICSI with surplus cryopreserved sperm retrieved at microTESE and donor eggs.” Dr. Shahryar Kavoussi states, “This publication in the Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics is unique in that is the first reported case of live birth after surplus cryopreserved MicroTESE sperm was used for IVF/ICSI with donor oocytes. We are so excited for the couple who was able to achieve a successful pregnancy and live birth”.
To read the full text article go to http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10815-014-0421-y/fulltext.html
