Surgical removal of sperm

In some cases of assisted reproduction it is necessary to extract sperm surgically in order to fertilise eggs during IVF. This may be necessary for men with no sperm in their semen (e.g. those who have had vasectomies and later decide they want children, or those who cannot ejaculate, such as men with spinal cord injuries). 

To ensure we can always offer our patients the most appropriate treatment, we offer three different methods of sperm extraction:

• Micro-epididymal sperm aspiration (MESA)

• Percuateous epididymal sperm aspiration (PESA)

• Testicular sperm extraction (TESE)

All of these treatments are provided as a day case procedure in our theatre suite, which means you do not need to be admitted to hospital overnight. You will be cared for by our team of specialists until you are well enough to go home.

Sperm obtained using any of these three procedures will usually have poor movement (what we class as ‘non-progressive motility’). In order to improve the chances of fertilisation, our dedicated team will directly inject the most appropriate sperm into each egg (by a process known as intracytoplasmic sperm injection, before we transfer the fertilised embryo into the womb.