[Clinical results of infertility treatment to male patients with spinal cord injury]

Abstract

It is difficult for male patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) to have children because of an ejaculation and dysfunction of spermatogenesis. However, owing to progress of assisted reproduction technology in recent years, it has become possible to have children even if the male has SCI, and the rate of success is improving gradually. During the 8 years from 1994 to 2002, infertility treatment was performed on 16 male patients with SCI consulting our hospital for acquistion of a child. We extracted their sperm by electroejaculation (EE) or testicular excision sperm extraction (TESE), and the sperm was artificially inseminated by the techniques such as artificial insemination with husband's semen (AIH), in vitro fertilization (IVF), and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). Consequently, it was successful in 14 pregnancies on 10 couples, and resulted in 11 healthy live births on 7 couples. Four cases resulted in abortion. Two spouses are pregnant at present. There were no remarkable differences between the success group and the failure group in the quality of sperm such as concentration and motility. The mean age of the spouses who became pregnant was slightly lower than that of those who did not. Assisted reproduction techniques as EE and ICSI were useful techniques for patients with SCI wishing to have children.