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Hum. Reprod. Advance Access originally published online on September 7, 2006
Human Reproduction 2006 21(11):2890-2893; doi:10.1093/humrep/del232
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Posthumous sperm retrieval: analysis of time interval to harvest sperm

Shai Shefi1,2,4,*, Gil Raviv1, Michael L. Eisenberg2, Ruth Weissenberg1, Liza Jalalian2, Jacob Levron3, Gili Band1, Paul J. Turek2 and Igael Madgar1

1 Department of Urology, Chaim Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer, Israel 2 Department of Urology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA and 3 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Chaim Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer, Israel

4 To whom correspondence should be addressed at: Department of Urology, University of California San Francisco, 1600 Divisidero Street, Rm A722, San Francisco, CA 94143-1695, USA. E-mail: sshefi{at}yahoo.com

* Recipient of fellowship from The American Physicians Fellowship for Medicine in Israel.

BACKGROUND: Current recommendations regarding posthumous sperm retrieval (PSR) are based on a small number of cases. Our purpose was to determine the time interval from death to a successful procedure. METHODS: Seventeen consecutive PSR procedures in 14 deceased and 3 neurologically brain-dead patients at two male infertility centres [Sheba Medical Center (SMC), Tel-Hashomer, Israel and University of California San Francisco (UCSF), San Francisco, CA, USA] were analysed. Main outcome measures were retrieval of vital sperm, pregnancies and births. RESULTS: PSR methods included resection of testis and epididymis (n = 8), en-block excision of testis, epididymis and proximal vas deferens with vasal irrigation (n = 6), electroejaculation (EEJ) (n = 2) and epididymectomy (n = 1). PSR was performed 7.5–36 h after death. Sperm was retrieved in all cases and was motile in 14 cases. In two cases, testicular and epididymal tissues were cryopreserved without sperm evaluation, and in one case, no motility was detected. IVF and ICSI were performed in two cases in which sperm had been retrieved 30 h after death, and both resulted in pregnancies and live births. CONCLUSIONS: Viable sperm is obtainable with PSR well after the currently recommended 24-h time interval. PSR should be considered up to 36 h after death, following appropriate evaluation. No correlation was found between cause of death and chance for successful sperm retrieval.

Key words: assisted reproduction/male infertility/posthumous/sperm retrieval


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