New Technology to Treat Men Who Were Told They Could Never Father Children

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Everybody knows that women may have problems conceiving children. But men can have difficulties too, and it is as common as infertility in women. Some men have low numbers of sperm or swimmers that don’t work well. Others may have no sperm at all.

While in the past men with no sperm, a condition known as “azoospermia”, were told that they had no hope to father children, modern technological advances made it possible for many men with azoospermia to make their wives pregnant.

The way in which men with azoospermia have been diagnosed in the past is often to have a procedure where a small piece of material is removed from their testis either with surgery or a small needle inserted into the scrotum. Often if the material does not contain any mature sperm, men are told that there is nothing to be done for their fertility problem. However, new advances allow for sperm to be found even if one or more sperm retrievals did not produce usable sperm for in-vitro fertilization.

A modern technique now being performed in Dubai called “microsurgical testis sperm extraction” or “micro-TESE” allows the surgeon to more intensively identify the microscopic tubules in the testis that contain mature sperm. A highly experienced laboratory specialist processes these surgically retrieved tiny tubules to extract the sperm for in-vitro fertilization (IVF).

The micro-TESE technique was performed for the first time in the UAE on December 6, 2011 at Fakih IVF in Dubai, the only center in the Gulf and Southeast Asia that provides this treatment. Of the first 13 men who were told that they would never be able to father children, 9 had sperm retrieved. The micro-TESE technique brings hope to men who believed that fatherhood was a lost dream.