It is a procedure followed in cases of serious oligospermia (when spermatozoal production is low and inadequate) or azoospermia (when there are no spermatozoa during ejaculation).
If the biopsy is positive, then the spermatozoa found are frozen to be used on the day of the egg collection at microfertilisation (ICSI).
On the other hand, if it is negative, it is recommended to use third-party donor as an alternative.
Procedure
This procedure is rather painful and it is performed by an expert urological surgeon, either under general anaesthesia and by biopsy or under local anaesthesia through needle aspiration.
During the biopsy, material (a small part) is removed from testicles or the epididymis to be tested by expert embryologists to verify whether there are viable spermatozoa, mobile or not.
The patient to undergo a biopsy should be fasting from midnight the day before to come to the unit half an hour prior to the scheduled procedure to have an ECG and report his complete medical history (any allergies, previous procedures, pharmaceutical treatment likely to be taken at that time) to the expert anaesthesiologist.
