Azoospermia, cryptozoospermia and necrospermia can markedly decrease the ability of males to achieve pregnancy in fertile females. However, patients with these severe conditions still have the option to be treated by intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) to become biological fathers. This study analyzed the fertilization ability and the developmental viabilities of the derived embryos after I...

A consensus needs to be reached on a rational approach to infertile men with varicocele-associated nonobstructive azoospermia. Future studies are warranted to understand the mechanism behind the variable influence of varicocele on testicular function, which causes partial or complete damage of spermatogenesis in some cases and leaves it unaltered in others.

Maturation arrest (MA) refers to failure of germ cell development leading to clinical nonobstructive azoospermia. Although the azoospermic factor (AZF) region of the human Y chromosome is clearly implicated in some cases, thus far very little is known about which individual Y-chromosome genes are important for complete male germ cell development. We sought to identify single genes on the Y chro...

BACKGROUND The genetic basis of nonobstructive azoospermia is unknown in the majority of infertile men. METHODS We performed array comparative genomic hybridization testing in blood samples obtained from 15 patients with azoospermia, and we performed mutation screening by means of direct Sanger sequencing of the testis-expressed 11 gene (TEX11) open reading frame in blood and semen samples ob...

Received on: April 28, 2009 – Accepted on: Oct 15, 2009 aBstRact Azoospermia is defined as the absence of mature spermatozoa in semen analysis after centrifugation. The causes of azoospermia may be related to spermatogenesis defects and classified as nonobstructive azoospermia, or to the obstruction of the efferent ducts of the genital tract and classified as obstructive azoospermia. Before the...

The proposed hypothesis for this study was that seminal testosterone/estradiol levels and/or their ratios may be a good indicator for predicting normal spermatogenesis. The concentrations of estradiol and testosterone in seminal fluid were measured using competitive immunoassay techniques in specimens collected from 192 infertile patients and 103 normospermic men. Infertile patients were subdiv...