# Testicular biopsies - cancer survivor



## Flopsy (Sep 18, 2003)

Dear Peter,

Thank you for offering your help.

My DH and I have just been through our first unsuccessful attempt at ICSI. This ended in an abnormal bleed on day 11. I will be investigating why this occurred with the clinic.

We need to make a decision on our next step. My DH is a testicular cancer survivor. He has had one testicle removed (with a tumour) but his other testicle was undescended as a child and he had no sperm in his ejaculate. Before his cancer treatment (surgery and rad) he did not bank sperm as his Consultant advised us that he would not be affected by the process........

He had to have a biopsy done of his remaining testicle to obtain sperm but we only had enough for this one cycle of ICSI. His Urologist tells us that further biopsies may result in hormonal problems as they may need to remove large amounts of tissue.

One of our biggest problems is the huge emotional toll this is taking. My DH would like to go ahead with a further biopsy but cannot emotionally cope with the idea of this being done at the same time as the egg collection part of the ISCI.

His first biopsy was very painful and he was off work for much longer than expected. The wound was big rather than the pinprick we had expected.

Our first tissue sample was frozen and we were lucky enough to get 5 out of 6 eggs fertilised. Of these 5, one perished, we have frozen 2 average grade embryos and the other two (who were top) grade were transferred but lost I presume due to the severe bleed (I think from a polyp).

Could you please let us know your opinion on fresh versus frozen samples of sperm tissue from a testicular biopsy?

We have very limited amounts to work with.

I hope that this makes sense. Thank you.

Annette


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## peter (Oct 2, 2002)

Flopsy said:


> Dear Peter,
> 
> Thank you for offering your help.
> 
> ...


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