New Sperm Test Could Cut the Need for Biopsy

Lisa Franchi November 22, 2013

For men with zero sperm counts, the only way to know whether they are capable of fathering children using IVF is through surgery. But just recently, scientists from Canada have developed a non-invasive test which eliminates the need for such procedure.

The research, published in the Science Translational Medicine, has identified two biomarkers that can be used to predict whether sperm retrieval will be successful. According to lead author Dr Keith Jarvi of the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada, the holy grail of his research was to find a way to help men avoid unnecessary testicular biopsies. "The benefit of this is that we can predict without surgery whether or not a man has sperm or does not have sperm in the testicles.” he told BBC.

Encouraging findings

In current testing, doctors first examine the patient’s semen under the microscope to see if sperm was there. If no sperm was seen, the next step is to take tissue from a man’s testicle. "Quite understandably, many men would rather not undergo this procedure if they didn’t have to," said Dr Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield and chairman of the British Fertility Society, who was not part of the study.

Dr Pacey said that the test, which is thought to be available in a year, was "encouraging". Male infertility is responsible for about half of cases of infertility. Men who produce no sperm can sometimes be helped to father a biological child through IVF, if they have normal sperm that can be extracted through surgery. But others may not be able to father a child naturally so they would need to use a donor sperm.

"Therefore, having an accurate biochemical test which might help doctors advise men whether taking a piece of the testicle is worth doing or not, would be very useful.” he added.

Source of this article:

Sperm test for infertile men could reduce surgery