This Movember, discover treatments for male infertility

Movember… 

Men’s Health Awareness Month is about more than a month of mustaches. By investing in their health at a young age, men can ensure they’re in the best possible position to meet their goals.

Men’s Health Awareness Month is an incredibly important time for people to learn more about recognizing and treating a range of different health challenges, from prostate cancer to mental and reproductive health issues.

Fakih IVF offers a full range of diagnostic tests, and medical and surgical treatments to diagnose and treat the spectrum of male infertility problems. 

– Evaluation of a man’s fertility:

 This step includes looking for signs of hormone deficiency, such as increased body fat, decreased muscle mass, and decreased facial and body hair. The evaluation also includes questions about the man’s health history, including past injury to the testicles or penis, recent high fevers, and childhood diseases such as mumps. A physical examination allows for the identification of problems such as infection, hernia, or varicocele. A health care provider may also ask for tests that may include measurement of hormones in the blood, a biopsy of the testicle, genetic screening, Scrotal ultrasound, Post-ejaculation urinalysis, and Specialized sperm function tests.

– Semen analysis:

This test analyzes the health and viability of a man’s sperm and measures three major factors of sperm health: the number, shape, and movement of the sperm.

-Hormone treatments and medications:

 Our doctor might recommend hormone replacement or medications in cases where infertility is caused by high or low levels of certain hormones or problems with the way the body uses hormones.

– Sperm freezing: 

 Different Testicular or Prostate cancer treatments, including medications, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and hormone therapy, can affect fertility. Sperm production may fall or stop with radiation treatment. It usually comes back again afterward, although the individual may still produce a smaller quantity of sperm. Even with a smaller amount of sperm, the person may still be fertile. So it’s a good idea to freeze your sperm before you have any cancer treatment and can use it later when you want to have children.

Surgery and sperm Extraction Procedures:

For example, a varicocele can often be surgically corrected or an obstructed vas deferens repaired. Prior vasectomies can be reversed. In cases where no sperm are present in the ejaculate, sperm can often be retrieved directly from the testicles or epididymis using sperm retrieval techniques.  

 Sperm extraction procedures include: 

TESA: It is a minor procedure that typically takes 5-10 minutes under sedation. During the procedure, sperm is directly removed from the testes to be used in an IVF-ICSI cycle. 

MicroTESE: It is an invasive procedure utilized to locate sperm in men with Non-Obstructive Azoospermia or severe testicular failure. During a MicroTESE, the testes are surgically opened, tissue is inspected under a microscope and an intense search of every part of the testicle is performed to locate healthy areas that are more likely to contain sperm.

 Testicular Mapping: It is a minimally invasive procedure during which a fine needle is placed in different areas of the testes to obtain small samples of testicular fluid. The aspirate is fixed on a slide and checked for sperm following the procedure. If sperm are found, a future sperm retrieval will be scheduled during an IVF-ICSI Cycle and will be carried out from the sites where sperm was found during the original mapping. Also, there is Advanced Testicular Mapping, a technique that allows for sperm to be analyzed during the procedure and frozen for future use, eliminating the need to perform future aspirations once sperm is located.

– Assisted reproductive technology (ART):

  ART treatments involve obtaining sperm through normal ejaculation, and surgical extraction depending on each specific case. The sperm is then inserted into the female genital tract or used to perform in vitro fertilization or intracytoplasmic sperm injection.

For more information about male infertility please visit https://fakihivf.com/male-infertility/  or call us at 80032544 to discuss your medical history with a Fakih IVF Fertility Center Urologist.