Surgical Sperm Retrieval

This procedure involves the collection of sperm from a small piece of testicular tissue, obtained through a single or several biopsies.

This procedure is carried out in men with:

  • Obstructive azoospermia
  • Congenital absence of vas deferens
  • Vasectomy
  • Non-obstructive azoospermia
  • Difficulty in Ejaculation

Techniques :

PESA – Percutaneous Epididymal Sperm Aspiration

Sperm are collected from the epididymis, where the sperm are stored usually. A needle is directly inserted into the epididymis and aspirated.

TESE – Testicular Sperm Extraction

Retrieval of sperm from a biopsy or several biopsies from testicular tissue.

Procedure :

This is a minor operative procedure which is carried out under local anaesthesia. A small tissue is biopsied from the testis. The extracted tissues are teased and examined for the presence of sperm on the same day. Usually, the sperm extracted by the TESE procedure results in a very low number of sperm. It is sometimes possible to freeze the extracted sperm if the number of sperm retrieved is enough. Those frozen TESE sperm are later thawed at the time of ICSI. But sometimes the sperm quantity might not be sufficient or the quality might not be good enough for freezing, hence fresh TESE procedure on the day of ICSI should be carried out.

General Information:

This is a day-care procedure, which requires a minimum of 4-5 hours of stay in the hospital.

The procedure might take a few minutes to hours (minimum 15 minutes to maximum 1 hour) based on the sperm retrieval procedure.

Possible problems are:

  1. Pain
  2. Bleeding
  3. Infection
  1. Tight compression dressing
  2. To avoid strenuous activity at least for a week
  3. Can resume back to office work in 24-48 hours
  4. To continue medications (usually Antibiotics & pain killer) as per doctors’ advice.