Successful pregnancies using frozen thawed testicular sperm in ICSI program

Oum, Ki Boong; Yoon, Tae Ki; Cha, Kwang Yul; Kim, Hyun Joo; Nam, Yoon Sung; Kim, Hyun Kyoo; Kwak, In Pyung; Han, Sei Yul

Abstract

There are not much reports concerning with clinical results using frozen-thawed testivular sperm in ICSI program. It is speculated that the necessity of cryopreservation of testicular sperm to avoid repeating surgical procedure for obtaining sperm for ICSI. This study was carried out to confirm whether frozen-thawed testicular sperm could be fertilized and pregnancy could be achieved using embryos fertilized with frozen-thawed testicular sperm in ICSI program or not. Testicular sperm obtained from obstructive- or non-obstructive azoospermia patients were co-cultured for 3 days with Vero cells to improve sperm motility. By co-culturing with Vero cells for 3 days, O-ll% of sperm motility after thawing increased up to 8-42% after co-culturing. ICSI was performed using frozen-thawed, and co-cultured sperm with 66 oocytes obtained from 8 patients and 62 oocytes were survived and 49(79.0%) oocytes were fertilized normally. Embryo transfer was possible in 7 out of 8 patients, and pregnancy was achieved in 6 patients(85.7%). These results indicated that not only fresh testicular sperm but frozen-thawed testicular sperm can be used in ICSI program.