[Clinical application of oocyte vitrification in failed testicular sperm extraction cycles: report of 8 cases].
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the clinical application value of oocyte vitrification in failed testicular sperm extraction cycles in non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA) patients.


METHODS
We retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of 8 women undergoing oocyte frozen-thawing cycles by vitrification because of failed testicular sperm extraction from their NOA husbands and no banked donor sperm on the day of oocyte retrieval. The oocytes were cryopreserved by vitrification with cryotop and thawed 2 months later. The surviving metaphase II (MII) oocytes were injected with the banked donor sperm of the same blood type as the husbands by intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) for fertilization. The rates of oocyte survival, fertilization, cleavage, good embryos and pregnancy were evaluated.


RESULTS
Sixty oocytes were vitrified and 47 (78.3%) survived after thawing, of which 41 MII oocytes underwent ICSI and 33 (80.5%) of them were fertilized. The rates of cleavage and good embryos were 81.8% (27/33) and 59.3% (16/27) respectively. Fifteen of the embryos were transferred to the 8 patients, with 1.9 +/- 0.8 per cycle, of which 5 (33.3%) were confirmed by ultrasound to have been implanted and 5 resulted in clinical pregnancy (62.5%), all singleton without miscarriage. Three normal boys and 1 normal girl were already born, with the pregnancy time of (39 + 4 +/- 0.4) wk and newborn body weight of (3787.5 +/- 513.7) g, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
Vitrification of oocytes in failed testicular sperm extraction cycles is a promising technique for preserving female fertility, which, with ICSI of banked donor sperm, may result in satisfactory clinical outcomes.
Song
Wen-Yan
WY
Center of Reproductive Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan 450052, China. zzswyok@hotmail.com
Sun
Ying-Pu
YP
Jin
Hai-Xia
HX
Xin
Zhi-Min
ZM
Su
Ying-Chun
YC
Guo
Yi-Hong
YH
Chen
Zi-Jiang
ZJ
D000328:Adult; D053713:Azoospermia; D015925:Cryopreservation / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009865:Oocytes; D011247:Pregnancy; D018873:Pregnancy Rate; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013074:Sperm Banks; D020554:Sperm Injections, Intracytoplasmic; D013737:Testis; D017211:Treatment Failure