CASES OF MEN WISHING TO RECOVER THEIR FERTILITY AFTER A STERILIZATION ARE INCREASING

CREA highlights the lack of awareness among male population about the possibility of recovering their fertility after a vasectomy 

• The typical profile is that of a man older than 50 years who has started a new life with a younger woman 
  
• Testicular sperm aspiration and vasectomy reversal by microsurgery are the main options to recover fertility. 

Recovering fertility is an increasing desire for those men who, years ago, underwent a vasectomy to avoid having other descendants. This is pointed out by CREA (Assisted Reproduction Medical Centre) that detected a 30% increase of cases of men attending the clinic with their partner, looking for pregnancy and for a solution to the voluntary sterility they chose years ago. “There are many men ignoring that they can be father again reverting their vasectomy by microsurgery, or through techniques like TESA (Testicular Sperm Aspiration) that, with a simple intervention, allows the aspiration of testicular sperm that are able to fertilize and to give rise to embryos with good implantation potential thanks to assisted reproduction techniques”, points out Dr. Miguel Ruíz Jorro, CREA’s co-director. 

Indeed there is lack of information, as Dr. Ruíz points out, among male population about the chance of having a baby again after undergoing an intervention to become sterile years ago. The typical profile of the man attending the Clinic to recover fertility is older than 50, who decided to have no more babies with his former partner and thus chose to undergo a vasectomy. Nowadays he has remade his life with a younger woman whom he would like to have children with. 

Rather than vasectomy reversal by microsurgery, that entails a complex surgery that is not always giving back to the patient the possibility of having children naturally, assisted reproduction techniques allow to achieve gestation using a minimum amount of sperm aspired from testicular tissue. This simple surgery is an outpatient treatment performed under local anaesthesia, with low risks and highly tolerated by patients. The sperm retrieved is frozen to be subsequently used for the insemination of his partner’s eggs by sperm microinjection (ICSI). In one aspiration it’s possible to retrieve enough sperm to be used for different assisted reproduction treatments, thus avoiding repeat the surgery. These spermatozoa can be cryopreserved for years without losing its fertilizing potential, until the patient decides to destroy them.