Forty percent of men who present for fertility evaluations are diagnosed with a varicocele, an abnormal dilation of veins around the testicle, making varicocele the most common correctable form of male infertility.
Fairly recent science has identified a molecule, phosphatidylserine (PS) which is expressed on the surface of the sperm cell. PS is necessary for sperm to fuse with an egg for fertilization to occur, and if sperm do not express PS, fusion and fertilization cannot occur.
Dr. Parviz Kavoussi presented his clinical trial data at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine annual scientific congress in Baltimore, MD. Dr. Kavoussi assessed PS scores in infertile men with varicoceles, performed microsurgical repairs of the varicoceles and demonstrated a significant rise in PS expression 3 months following varicocele repair with correlative positive data on pregnancy results.
Dr. Kavoussi states, “This is very exciting new science which helps us guide infertile men more optimally. It has been shown that nearly 1/3 of men with varicoceles and normal conventional semen analysis parameters have low PS expression, and we may be mistakenly categorizing these men as being fertile. The PS is an adjunct test to the conventional semen analysis which may help us understand who will benefit from varicocele repair.”
Learn more about the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s Scientific Congress and Expo in Baltimore, MD.
