infertility in both male or female
any case
Diagnosis
main article: fertility testing if both partners are young and healthy and have been trying to conceive for one year without success, a visit to a andrologist could help to highlight potential medical problems earlier rather than later. the doctor may also be able to suggest lifestyle changes to increase the chances of conceiving.
a doctor takes a medical history and gives a physical examination. they can also carry out some basic tests on both partners to see if there is an identifiable reason for not having achieved a pregnancy, if necessary, they refer patients to a fertility clinic or local hospital for more specialized tests. the results of these tests help determine the best fertility treatment.
treatment
treatment depends on the cause of infertility, but may include counselling, fertility treatments, which include in vitro fertilization. according to ESHRE recommendation, couples with an extimated live birth rate of 40% or higher per year are encouraged to continue aiming for a spontaneous pregnancy. treatment methods for infertility may be grouped as medical or complementary and alternative treatments. some methods may be used in concet with other methods. drgus used for both women and mebn include clomiphene citrate, human menopausal gonodotropin (hmg), follicle -stimulating hormone (fsh), human chorionic gonadotropin (hcg), gonadoropin-releasing hormone (gnrh). analogues, aromatase inhibitors, and metformin.
medical treatments
medical treatment of infertility generally involves the use of fertility medication, medical device, surgery, or a combination of the following. if the sperm are of good quality and mechanics of the woman's reproductive stuctures are good (patent fallopian tubes, no adhesions or scarring), a course of ovulation induction maybe used. the physician/andrologist may also suggest using a conception cap cervical cap, which the patient used at home by placing the sperm inside the cap and putting the conception device on the cervix, or intrautering insemination (IUI) , in which the doctor introduces sperm into the uterus during ovulation, via a catheter. in these
methods, fertilization occurs inside the body.
if conservative medical treatments fail to achieve a full term pregnancy, the physician may suggest the patient undergo in vitro fertilization (IVF). ivf and related techniques (ICSI, ZIFT, GIFT) are called assisted reproductive technology (ART) techniques.
ART techniques generally start with stimulating the ovaries to increase egg production. after stimulation, the physician surgically extracts one or more eggs from the ovary, and unites them with sperm in a laboratory setting, with the intent of producing one or more embryos.
fertilization takes place outside the body, and the fertilized egg is reinserted into the woman's reproductive tract, in a procedure called embryo transfer.
other medical techniques are e.g. tuboplasty, assisted hatching, and preimplantation genetic diagnosis.
in virto fertilization
a depiction of the procedure of in-vitro fertilization. IVF is most commonly used ART. it has been proven useful in overcoming infertility conditions, such as blocked or damaged tubes, endometriosis, repeated IUI failure, unexplained infertility, poor ovarian reserve, poor or even nil sperm count.
intacytoplasmic sperm injection ICSI technique is used in case of poor semen quality, low sperm count or failed fertilization attempts during prior IVF cycles.
this technique involoves an injection of a single healthy sperm directly injected into mature egg. the fertilized embyo is then transferred to womb
tourism
main article: fertility tourism
fertility tourism is the practice of traveling to another country for fertility treatments.
it may be regarded as a form of medical tourism. the main resons for fertility tourism are legal regulation of the sought procedure in the home country or lower price. in - vitro
fertilization and donor insemination are major procedures involved.
stem cell therapy
nowadays, there are several treatments (still in experimentation) related to stem cell therapy. it is a new opportunity, not only for partners with lack of gametes, but also for homosexuals and single people who want to have offspring. theoretically, with this therapy, we can get artificial gametes in vitro. ther are different studies for both women and men.
spermatogonial stem cells transplant: It takes places in the seminiferous tubule. with this treatment, the patient experience spermatogenesis, and therefore, it has the chance to have offspring if he wants to. it is specially oriented for cancer patients, whose sperm is destroyed due to the gonadotoxic treatment they are submitted to ovarian stem cells: it is thought that women have a finite number of follicles from the very beginning. nevertheless, scientists have found these stem cells which may generate new oocytes in postnatal conditions. apparently there are only 0.014% of them (this could be an explanation of why they were not discovered until now.
stem cell therapy is really new and everything is still under investigation.
Follow me
You must be logged in to post a comment.