# Surgical Sperm retrieval



## ceci.bee (Nov 1, 2008)

Dear Crystal,

We have just had a Surgical Sperm retrieval for NOA (due to Y-gene deletion AFZc I think) Despite the histology showing some scanty sperm, nil were found on the day The embryologist looked at all the samples for about 2 hours. Our Urologist has suggested a repeat sample after 6 months and sending the samples to different clinics as he said 'its all about the embryologist'. Do you think this would be valuable, and how long is enough to look to find testicular sperm? I don't really understand how its done and how you decide what's viable or not and would really appreciate your help.

BW
Cecilia


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## CrystalW (Jul 25, 2007)

ceciliab said:


> Dear Crystal,
> 
> We have just had a Surgical Sperm retrieval for NOA (due to Y-gene deletion AFZc I think) Despite the histology showing some scanty sperm, nil were found on the day The embryologist looked at all the samples for about 2 hours. Our Urologist has suggested a repeat sample after 6 months and sending the samples to different clinics as he said 'its all about the embryologist'. Do you think this would be valuable, and how long is enough to look to find testicular sperm? I don't really understand how its done and how you decide what's viable or not and would really appreciate your help.
> 
> ...


Hello Cecilia,

A tese sample comes into the lab as a chunk or small pieces of testicular tissue - this has to be mashed up and generally washed in some way to get rid of some of the red blood cells. The sample is then spread thinly in a lot of dishes and one or sometimes more Embryologists will sit down at the high powered microscope and look through the whole sample. We look for however long it takes to go through the sample - it varies on how much tissue the surgeon has taken, which varies between patients. Two hours is a long time to search for sperm and if the whole sample was checked there was nothing more that could be done.

Any sperm that are found are collected in a seperate dish and any motile/ least abnormal sperm are used first. But if nothing else can be found then immotile sperm can be injected with ICSI.

I cant really comment on the urologist saying `its all about the Embryologist`. We have an awful lot of training and sperm searching is a core part of our job.

Sometimes there can be small pockets of sperm so it does depend on whether tissue containing one of these pockets has been removed so sometimes sperm are found on a second tese, though only your Urologist can really give you an indication of how likely this is. It think donor back-up is a very sensible option in these cases. You can always ask for embryos to be frozen if the donor sperm is used and you need more time to consider the issues.

Best wishes


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## ceci.bee (Nov 1, 2008)

Thanks Crystal - that is really helpful.
C


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