My Vasectomy Reversal

Heavy science warning here as we cover an article from UroToday, The Kinetics of the Return of Motile Sperm to the Ejaculate After Vasectomy Reversal.

I’ll do my best to translate the gobbledy-gook. First, let’s get our language straight. Patency, in terms of vasectomy reversal, means sperm is present in the semen. This is important; when your doctor talks about the vasectomy reversal success rate, there is a big difference between patency and pregnancy.

So back to this study — basically, they are saying that the presence of sperm in the vas deferens at the time of surgery, is a good predictor of patency — how soon sperm will return to the ejaculate, and that it is actually a better predictor than age.

There is an interesting editorial comment at the end of the article:

“The authors explore an important concept in the debate between reconstruction and testicular sperm acquisition and ART (assisted reproductive technology) for the post vasectomy patient. The time to sperm return to the ejaculate appears to be greater when no motile sperm is found in the testicular vas. This information may important to the older couple under going reconstruction and may significantly affect fecundibility rates. Perhaps if no motile sperm is observed at time of reconstruction in such a couple, one should consider testicular sperm acquisition at the time of reconstruction so that ART may be accessed more quickly without the need for another procedure.”

Oh, I did learn one other thing from this article. A vasoepididymostomy (VE) is also referred to as an epididymovasostomy (EV). The article does go into some depth on patency rates re: VE as opposed to vasovasostomy (VV).

Technorati tag: Vasectomy reversal