results of icsi in severe oligozoospermic and azoospermic patients with azf microdeletions

background: the aim of this study was to determine the incidence of azf (azoospermia factor) microdeletions of the y chromosome in infertile turkish male patients and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (icsi) outcome of these patients. objective: this study was undertaken in order to evaluate the outcome of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (icsi) in infertil man with azf microdeletions materials and methods: we evaluated 348 azoospermic and oligozoospermic patients retrospectively. fourty of these patients had various types of azf microdeletions. these patients had non-obstructive severe oligoasthenospermia or azoospermia with normal karyotype. azoospermic patients underwent testicular sperm extraction and aspiration (tese, tesa). then icsi was performed to patients who had testicular sperm or ejeculat. results: fourty patients with azf microdeletion were evaluated in this study. no spermium could be found in 27 patients. three of these patients had only azfa microdeletion, three had azfb microdeletion, three had azf (b+c), six had azf (a+b+c) and 12 patients had azfc microdeletion. only two of all patients achieved a pregnancy and both had only azfc microdeletion. conclusion: azfc microdeletions have a better prognosis for achieving spermium in ejaculate or tese, tesa materials.