Surgical Sperm Recovery

Sometimes infertility is caused by the absence of sperm in the ejaculate, caused by either testicular failure or an obstruction in the tubes carrying the sperm.

Testicular failure can be caused by previous trauma or surgery to the testes, infection, genetic (inherited) factors, hormonal imbalance, or, in a proportion of cases, the cause is unknown. Apart from vasectomy, procedures cannot be performed to open the blockage as the tubes are generally tiny and within the testes themselves.

Surgical sperm recovery (SSR) gives a 30-80% chance of recovering sperm which are then frozen for use in a later IVF cycle with ICSI.