By SOLA OGUNDIPE

AS the rising problem of male-factor infertility is being effectively tackled with a technologically advanced approach called Intra-Cytosplasmic Morphologically-Selected Sperm Injection, IMSI, Nigerian couples with such challenge  have been urged to take advantage of the technique.

IMSI enables direct selection of good sperms from the man and then injecting into the woman’s egg to successfully achieve pregnancy.

It is  a build up on a previously existing treatment for male-factor infertility treatment procedure called Intra-Cytosplasmic Sperm Injection, ICSI.

*Ajayi

Making the call last week,Medical; Director, Nordica Fertility Centre, Lagos, Dr. Abayomi Ajayi, said couples who may have been experiencing failed assisted reproduction conceptions or recurrent miscarriages, may need to be investigated for the problem of male-factor infertility.

“When we compared the sperm parameters of men who presented 10  years ago in our clinic with parameters of those who are presenting now, we found that there is about a 30 percent decline in the sperm count of those presenting now,” Ajayi stated.

Noting that although the observation was based strictly on patients attending the clinic and not  the whole community, he hoever noted: “We are seeing  more male issues than what we saw 10 years ago. The sperm parameters are becoming worse, and therefore it  is necessary to bring it to the front burner and we cannot talk about it without talking about technology, because we know there is no drug right now that solves the problem of deranged sperm count or bad sperm parameters.”

Arguing that IMSI is someting we need to talk about, Ajayi stated: “From our  findings, IMSI has increased pregnancy rates in people with previous failures in ICSI, and we also saw there were less abortion rates. IMSI is only indicated when there is less than two million sperm count  and motility less than 5 percent.

“First, sperm count is low, then there is higher incidence of genetically deformed sperms. Much of the problems with bad sperm is genetic, and  they can burn out,”he noted.

Nordica Fertility Centre  pioneered the technique in West Africa, and says IMSI doubles the chances of men with abnormally low sperm count and poor sperm motility. It was gathered series of pregnancies have already been successfully achieved through the pioneering initiative.