Any Man Can Father A Child, Says Doc

Mid-Day,
BY A STAFF REPORTER

EVERY man, no matter what his medical problem, can father a child with his own sperm, according to Dr Aniruddha Malpani, a city-based doctor and member of the European Society for Human Reproduction.

The new technique, called TSE ICSI (pronounced 'sexy'), is being offered by the Malpani Infertility Clinic and involves sperm extraction with intracytoplasmic sperm injection.

It is a technique in which sperms are extracted from the testes of an azoospermic man and injected into the wife's ova. Dr Malpani told MID-DAY that it was formerly believed that sperm has to undergo a maturation process before they could fertilise an egg. However, using microinjection, it is possible to fertilise eggs even with testicular sperms.

This technique, first pioneered in Belgium, has now been made available in India with the help of the largest IVF clinic in the UK, the Midland Fertility Services, said Dr Malpani.

Malpani said that a patient of his opted for TSE ICSI . Minor surgery was carried out to extract sperm from his testes, which were then injected into each of his wife's eggs.

Of the 24 eggs injected, four fertilised and two two-cell embryos were replaced into his wife's uterus. The woman is now pregnant, and this has been confirmed by an ultrasound scan, Dr Malpani said.

Malpani said this was a major advance in the treatment of male infertility.