FERTILIZING ABILITY OF IMMOTILE SPERMATOZOA AFTER INTRACYTOPLASMIC SPERM INJECTION

Sometimes spermatozoa from ejaculate, epididymis or testis show a tota l absence of motility, For some patients, however, very few spermatozo a with very poor motility can be found after several hours of incubati on (initially immotile spermatozoa), Other samples show no motility at all even after extended culture (totally immotile spermatozoa), Intra cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is the only method available to sel ect and retrieve a single immotile or initially immotile spermatozoon and inject it into the oocyte. A total of 103 patients with asthenozoo spermia underwent ICSI in this study, It was shown that initially immo tile and totally immotile spermatozoa, whatever their origin, have the capacity to fertilize an oocyte after ICSI, No significant difference could be observed between the fertilizing capacity of testicular or e pididymal spermatozoa. Totally immotile ejaculated spermatozoa, howeve r, fertilized significantly fewer oocytes after ICSI when compared wit h initially immotile ejaculated spermatozoa, Embryos of lower quality tended to be produced when totally immotile spermatozoa of any origin were used, compared with embryos resulting front initially immotile sp ermatozoa, Ongoing pregnancies were conceived after ICSI with initiall y immotile spermatozoa from ally origin and totally immotile spermatoz oa retrieved from testis only One biochemical pregnancy was the result of embryo transfer after ICSI with totally immotile ejaculated sperma tozoa, No supernumerary embryos could be cryopreserved for patients wi th totally immotile spermatozoa from ejaculate or epididymis, For a Ka rtagener patient, subzonal insemination (SUZI) seemed to be a better a pproach for obtaining fertilization and pregnancy than ICSI because no fertilization occurred after ICSI an sibling oocytes. Hence a healthy pregnancy was obtained after SUZI.