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New
technique gives hope to infertile men A team of European scientists reported success
with a new fertility technique that gives hope to tens of
thousands of men with zero or very low sperm counts who
want to father children. Infertility researchers in
France, Germany, Turkey, Italy and Spa in said they had
taken testicular cells from five men who were either
infertile or sub-fertile and matured them in a solution
with testosterone and another hormone which stimulates
sperm production. The research, published in a letter to
The Lancet medical journal, resulted in one man and his
partner celebrating the birth of twin babies. Another
patient got his partner pregnant but the embryo developed
in the woman's fallopian tubes rather than her uterus and
failed to survive.The researchers told The Lancet in a
letter that "in-vitro culture may help to select
healthy germ cells to be used for assisted
reproduction." One of the team, Italian Ermanno
Greco, said that if correctly carried out the success
rate of the new method was very high. "That is, out
of 100 couples, 80 achieve a pregnancy after three
attempts," Greco was quoted as telling the Italian
newspaper Giornale. "Thanks to this technique in at
least 30 percent of those cases where spermatozoids are
not present in the testicles, but only their progenitor
cells, it is possible to bring these cells to
maturity," Greco added.
Male Infertility May Raise
Testicular Cancer Risk
Men with low fertility have double the
risk of testicular cancer than men with normal fertility,
Danish researchers say. Researchers at the Danish
National Research Foundation conducted a telephone survey
in 1989 and 1990 that asked hundreds of men about their
reproductive history, sexual habits, marriage status,
education and disease background.
They based their conclusions on data
collected from about 514 testicular cancer patients and
720 men without the disease. Researchers found that men
who had fathered at least one child or who had
impregnated a woman had a significantly lower risk of
testicular cancer, and that the reduction in risk
increased with each child they fathered up to a point.
However, extremely high fertility did not lower
testicular cancer risk, researchers say.
Researchers also found that sexually transmitted diseases
did not appear to affect testicular cancer risk. The
study's findings confirmed other research in which
doctors found testicular cancer patients had low sperm
counts and impaired sperm production. Researchers say
testicular cancer cases have risen over the past few
decades at the same time sperm quality has declined.
Researchers suggest male embryos may be exposed to
substances that affect the normal hormonal balance, which
could then affect fertility. This study appears in the
Feb. 26 issue of the British Medical Journal.
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