Evaluation of the Efficacy of the Laboratories of Embryology and Pathological Anatomy in the Analysis of Testicular Biopsies of Patients with Azoospermia

FRATTINI, G; PIROSANTO, Y; GOMEZ VITOLO M; CESARI, A; MERETTA, PE; PENÉ, A

REVISTA ARGENTINA DE UROLOGIA (1990)

SOCIEDAD ARGENTINA DE UROLOGÍA

Lugar: Buenos Aires; Año: 2018 vol. 83 p. 96 - 100

0327-3326

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy ofembryology and pathological anatomy laboratories to find spermatozoa intesticular tissue samples obtained by testicular sperm extraction (TESE)in patients with non-obstructive azoospermia.Materials and methods: It was carried out a retrospective and prospectiveanalysis of all the patients with non-obstructive azoospermia treated atCRECER and at Clínica Privada Pueyrredón, between January 2006 andDecember 2016. This study only includes patients in whom the sampleobtained with TESE was sent at the same time to the pathology andembryology laboratory. For the analysis of the results of the biopsies, thestudy was stopped at the end of 2016, but the follow-up of the patientscontinued until October 2017, registering all those cases that performedintracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) with samples obtained from TESEand wrote down the patients who´ve got embryos, pregnancies, and births.Results: The embryology laboratory found sperm in 36 of the 68 patients(52.9%), while the pathology laboratory only reported presence in 21patients (30.88%). There was agreement in the finding of sperm betweenboth laboratories in 20 of the 68 cases (29.41%), while in 16 patients theembryology laboratory found sperm where the pathology department couldnot do so (23.53%). At the same time, the pathology laboratory foundsperm only in one case in which the embryology department reported itsabsence for the same sample analyzed (1.47%) (p=0.0003).Conclusions: The embryology laboratory is significantly more efficient todetermine the presence of sperm in the samples of TESE, having betterperformance than the pathology one. Taking into account that, we believethat if the samples are only analyzed by the pathologist, the possibility ofgetting many pregnancies performing ICSI plus TESE would be lost.