Men have long been able to preserve their fertility by freezing their sperm.
Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong's three children were conceived
with sperm he banked before chemotherapy.
Fertility Preservation
for men may be done for several reasons:
-
Cancer patients before undergoing chemotherapy or radiation.
Cancer treatment adversely affects sperm quality and can lead to
infertility. We strongly encourage patients to freeze semen, preferably
before initiation of cancer treatment to preserve fertility. Patients may
need to undergo radiation, chemotherapy, or surgery as part of medical
management. Each of these treatments has deleterious effects on sperm
production and can contribute to infertility. Certain types of cancer may
also affect sperm quality even prior to the beginning of treatment. Recent
studies have shown that semen from patients with many cancer types including
testicular, seminoma, prostate, lymphoma, leukemia, and Hodgkin's can be
successfully frozen, even when sperm counts are low. Due to potential
genetic damage caused by chemotherapy or radiation, it is recommended that
sperm be frozen before cancer treatment is initiated.
-
Patients who are electing to have a vasectomy but
wish to have sperm stored.
-
Patients who are expecting to be unavailable at the time of
insemination
and wish to store sperm for their partner’s use.
Men with very low sperm counts or poor quality sperm may still successfully
freeze sperm when used with assisted reproductive technologies such as IVF
and ICSI.If there is complete absence of sperm there is still the
possibility of cryopreserving sperm in some cases.
As long as at least one testis has areas of sperm production, sperm can be
retrieved surgically from the epididymis or the testicular tissue and frozen
for future use with ICSI.
Technologies for Fertility Preservation in men include:
-
Semen freezing: Semen is collected, frozen, and
stored. Semen freezing is a well established procedure. The sperm can be
stored for years and used later for
intrauterine insemination (IUI)
or Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI). For men undergoing chemotherapy,
radiation or surgical castration, we recommend collection of multiple
samples prior to the initiation of therapy. The semen sample is tested for
quality and stored in a sperm bank for future use.
-
Percutaneous sperm aspiration (PESA): Sperm are
obtained through a needle aspiration of the epididymis (the sperm storage
area outside the testis), frozen and stored.
-
Testicular sperm extraction: Testicular tissue is
obtained through an open biopsy or with a biopsy gun. The sperm cells and
cells that produce the sperm are frozen and stored.
