Advanced Surgical Microscope Technology in Abu Dhabi

IVF Specialists in Abu Dhabi help a local suffering from infertility for over a decade

21 January 2017, Abu Dhabi - UAE: IVF Specialists in Abu Dhabi were capable of helping a very rare infertility case, who suffered from impaired sperm production for over ten years, using an advanced cutting-edge technology of its kind in the world. The patient was finally able to conceive.

Majd Abu Zant, CEO of HealthPlus Network of Specialty Centers which is part of United Eastern Medical Services, said “this advanced treatment unlocks new doors to the treatment of male infertility, noting that HealthPlus Fertility Center in Abu Dhabi, with its highly competent and well-experienced medical staff and advanced technologies, uses the surgical microscope technology in treating complex cases which is considered a very advanced technique globally and used internationally in IVF specialized centers. Adapting new technologies as such help limit the need to travel abroad seeking infertility treatments.”

Dr. Walid Sayed, Reproductive Endocrinology & IVF Consultant at HealthPlus Fertility & IVF Center in Abu Dhabi, said “the cutting-edge technology used was the surgical microscope, which magnifies the cells for 400 times, and allows us to collect a very small number of sperms from one of the patient’s testes and use them to fertilize the wife’s egg. The lady is now in her second trimester after 12 years of receiving treatments and undergoing IVF cycles abroad with no success.”

Dr. Walid also explained that the use of the surgical microscope technology, also called “Micro-dissection Testicular Extraction (Microtesa)”, was introduced in the center last year and was used in the treatment of 10 infertility cases, where one of them was successful and resulted in conception which is an excellent outcome given the complexity of the ten cases who, in vain, received treatment abroad.

“The microscope is used for searching for sperms in a patient’s testes, and there are usually a handful of them only, and in many cases, a part of the semen is collected because the sperms are not fully produced, and we then perform the IVF procedure.” Dr. Walid added, “In cases where we find a few sperms, we use 1 to 3 of them for fertilizing the egg and then the rest would be stored as per international protocols and in line with UAE regulatory laws which allow storing sperms for 5 years.”

According to Dr. Walid, “the procedure, Microtesa, is performed to the husband under general anesthesia and lasts 2-3 hours, during which the testes are thoroughly scanned using the microscope for the faintest sign of sperm production. Some of the main advantages of this technique is that it has no side effects on the testicular tissues on the long-run and the rate of finding sperms using this technique exceeds 60% even in cases of dystrophy or total failure of the testicles.”

In addition to that, Dr. Walid pointed out that Micro-dissection Testicular Extraction can be re-performed several times on cases that failed to conceive. Moreover, this technology is the latest technique used in searching for sperms, especially when it comes to the cases which did not respond to traditional methods, like sperm mapping, testicular fine needle aspirations or taking a biopsy from the testis or the epididymis.

Dr. Walid emphasized that the center uses the latest techniques for treating infertility, explaining that more than 6500 treatment cycles were performed for couples since the center first opened in 2011, and that 914 male infertility cases were treated this year—261 of them were successful and got pregnant. He also pointed out that the center encompasses sophisticated units deploying the latest technologies for storing eggs and sperms, and that there was a total of 904 sperm samples and 446 eggs currently stored.

“Clinical pregnancy was achieved in 70 cases out of 312 stored sperm samples, and 92 cases were successful out of 350 stored egg samples. Furthermore, 54 out of 226 cases treated with testicular mapping resulted in successful pregnancies, and 11 out of 75 cases treated with a frozen testicular biopsy were successful,” he added.

He concluded, “storing eggs and sperm are performed following the latest technologies where electronic systems and digital codes are deployed using the “RI” monitoring system—where every sample is given a code number in order to prevent any errors while handling samples, and has 100% accuracy.”