Hoffmann, R. A wiki for the life sciences where authorship matters. Nature Genetics (2008)

Editor

Personal info

View

About

Terms

Javascript disabled

Please enable Javascript support in your browser to use this application.

Instructions on how to enable JavaScript on different browsers can be found here: http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=23852.

[edit this page]

Hallak, J. et al.

Cryopreservation of sperm from patients with leukemia: is it worth the effort?

BACKGROUND: Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) allows pregnancies to be established with a single sperm, improving the chances for men with severely impaired sperm quality to cause a pregnancy. Men with leukemia typically are of reproductive age and their fertility is threatened by initially impaired semen quality and cytotoxic chemotherapy. The authors examined the feasibility of sperm cryopreservation in men with leukemia before treatment and whether the type of leukemia is related to prefreeze or postthaw semen quality. METHODS: Records of 25 patients with acute (n=13) or chronic (n=12) leukemia who banked their sperm were reviewed. Semen characteristics were compared with those of normal donors (n=50) and between the 2 patient groups before and after cryopreservation. Motile sperm count (MSC), motility, curvilinear velocity ( VCL), linearity, and amplitude of lateral head movement were compared between patients and healthy donors. No patient had undergone chemotherapy before sperm banking. The nitrogen vapor technique was used for sperm cryopreservation. RESULTS: Patients with leukemia had significantly lower prefreeze and postthaw MSC (P=0.0001), motility (P<0.05), and VCL (P<0.05) compared with healthy donors. The percentage change from prefreeze to postthaw in MSC and motility (P<0.05) was significantly greater in patients than in healthy donors. The effect of cryopreservation on semen quality was similar in patients with both acute and chronic leukemia. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with leukemia have poor prefreeze and postthaw semen quality compared with healthy donors. In this study the type of leukemia did not appear to affect prefreeze or postthaw semen quality and the postthaw MSC was sufficient for use with ICSI. Sperm cryopreservation should be offered to all men of reproductive age before the initiation of therapy for leukemia.[1]

References

Cryopreservation of sperm from patients with leukemia: is it worth the effort? Hallak, J., Kolettis, P.N., Sekhon, V.S., Thomas, A.J., Agarwal, A. Cancer (1999) [Pubmed]

Annotations and hyperlinks in this abstract are from individual authors of WikiGenes or automatically generated by the WikiGenes Data Mining Engine. The abstract is from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.About WikiGenes Open Access Licence Privacy Policy Terms of Use apsburg

The world's first wiki where authorship really matters (Nature Genetics, 2008). Due credit and reputation for authors. Imagine a global collaborative knowledge base for original thoughts. Search thousands of articles and collaborate with scientists around the globe.