Efficiency of using frozen-thawed testicular sperm for multiple intracytoplasmic sperm injections.
OBJECTIVE
To compare fertilization and pregnancy rates of fresh and frozen-thawed testicular sperm injections (TESE-ICSI).


METHODS
Sperm collected from the testes of 28 azoospermic patients by an open testicular biopsy technique was used for initial ICSI or cryopreserved.


RESULTS
Fresh-sperm ICSI treatment (28 cycles) resulted in a 58.1% fertilization rate and a 32.1% clinical pregnancy rate per embryo transfer, while frozen-thawed sperm (24 subsequent cycles) had rates of 54.5 and 29.2%, respectively. The PR was lower using frozen-thawed sperm from nonobstructive azoospermia patients (9.1%) than from obstructive azoospermia patients (46.2%). PR declined to 0% upon the fourth ICSI attempt.


CONCLUSIONS
Fertilization, embryo cleavage, and pregnancy rates were unaffected by fresh or frozen-thawed sperm use. A 57.1% cumulative clinical PR was achieved using the latter. The PR was significantly lower using frozen-thawed sperm from nonobstructive azoospermia patients than from obstructive azoospermia patients.
Fukunaga
N
N
Ladies Clinic Kyono, Furukawa, Miyagi, Japan. lckyono@olive.ocn.ne.jp
Haigo
K
K
Kyono
K
K
Araki
Y
Y
D001706:Biopsy; D015925:Cryopreservation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009845:Oligospermia / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D009865:Oocytes / Q000378:metabolism; D011247:Pregnancy; D020554:Sperm Injections, Intracytoplasmic / Q000379:methods; D013094:Spermatozoa / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology; D013737:Testis