Male Causes
Pre-testicular causes
Pre-testicular factors refer to conditions that impede adequate support of the testes and include situations of poor hormonal support and poor general health including:
- Obesity
- Drugs, alcohol, smoking
- Medications that decrease sperm motility
- Genetic abnormalities
Testicular factors:
Testicular factors refer to conditions where the testes produce semen of low quantity and/or poor quality despite adequate hormonal support and include:
- Age
- Genetic defects ,cancers, infections, varicocele, injury, radiations
Post-testicular causes:
Post-testicular factors decrease male fertility due to conditions that affect the male genital system after testicular sperm production and include defects of the genital tract as well as problems in ejaculation:
How can we treat it?
General and Physical examination
Semen sample.
Oligospermia - decreased number of spermatozoa in semen
-
Aspermia - complete lack of semen
-
Azoospermia - absence of sperm cells in semen
- Teratospermia - increase in sperm with abnormal morphology
-
Asthenozoospermia - reduced sperm motility
Blood sample:
Common hormonal test include determination of FSH and testosterone levels
Treatment
Treatments vary according to the underlying disease and the degree of the impairment of the male fertility
Testicular-based male infertility tends to be resistant to medication. Usual approaches include using the sperm for intrauterine insemination (IUI), in vitro fertilization (IVF), or IVF with intracytoplasmatic sperm injection (ICSI). With IVF-ICSI even with a few sperm pregnancies can be achieved.
Obstructive causes of post-testicular infertility can be overcome with either surgery or IVF-ICSI. Ejaculatory factors may be treatable by medication, or by IUI therapy or IVF.