La Jolla IVF – In Vitro Fertilization (IVF): Male Factor Infertility

While most people focus on a women’s inability to get pregnant, as many as 40 to 50 percent of the cases that I take care of it is the gentleman side where there is an issue with regards to fertility. For the gentleman we focus on the sperm terms of number, number of sperm that are moving, the shape of the sperm or morphology of sperm. So when the sperm is normally shaped it has a much higher likelihood of being able to penetrate the egg whereas if it has a high number of abnormalities within the shape of the sperm very few of the sperm are able to penetrate the egg. So before going forward with any type of fertility treatment it’s very important to evaluate what the gentleman sperm count is, the total number, total number of motile sperm, the overall morphology of the sperm, and frequently we do a DNA test on the sperm called a DNA fragmentation test. As gentleman get older sperm counts go down and the functionality of the sperm goes down. So it’s very important to get an overall view of what the DNA makeup of the sperm is. As gentlemen get older there are many gentlemen that are on testosterone replacement therapy, just as older women are on estrogen replacement therapy, well when I general minutes on testosterone replacement therapy this can significantly negatively impact the gentleman’s ability to make sperm and sometimes have no sperm on their ejaculate. These types of tests are very important to realize prior to going forward in a type of treatment therapy.

Source: La Jolla IVF – In Vitro Fertilization (IVF): Male Factor Infertility