Reproductive capacity of spermatozoa from men with testicular failure

Controversial reports have been published about the influence of sperm source and of the underlying testicular pathology on success rates of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). In this controlled study, ICSI treatment cycles with testicular spermatozoa from men with obstructive and non-obstructive azoospermia were compared with ICSI ejaculated sperm cycles with semen parameters ≤ 5 x 10⁶/ml and ≤ 10% progressive motility. The control cases were matched for female age, rank of trial, female basal follicle-stimulating hormone serum concentrations and close proximity to the study group's procedure. The fertilization, cleavage, pregnancy and abortion rates were similar in matched groups irrespective of the type of azoospermia. However, the implantation rate in the non-obstructive azoospermic patient group was significantly lower than that in the matched ejaculated sperm group (13.4% versus 26%, P = 0.05). On the other hand, no impairment of the implantation rate was observed in the obstructive azoospermic patient group. These data show that testicular pathology has a negative impact on reproductive performance of testicular spermatozoa, resulting in a decreased implantation potential without any apparent effect on fertilization and early preimplantation development.