Abstract
This chapter reviews the medical, scientific, and social aspects of human fertility. There may be a variety of proximate cause of male infertility. General causes include: diseases of the hypothalamus and pituitary gland that affect the endocrine signals to the testes or prevent adequate testicular development at puberty; disorders at the testicular level that may affect the rate or the quality of sperm production; dysfunction of the seminal ducts that prevent or inhibits sufficient number of sperm being ejaculated; and disorders of sexual function and/or ejaculation that interfere with intromission such as spinal cord injury. Each of these largely results in ejaculates containing either too few sperm (oligozoospermia), insufficiently motile sperm (asthenozoospermia), or insufficient proportions of morphologically normal sperm (teratozoospermia) to allow any reasonable chance of unassisted conception occurring within one year. The evaluation of male fertility, and hence the diagnosis of infertility, is not an exact science. Clinical evaluation by doctors involves a combination of physical examination and exploration of the patient's medical history followed by semen analysis. Techniques to overcome human infertility include donor insemination, intrauterine insemination, in vitro fertilization, intracytoplasmic sperm injection, and surgical methods of sperm recovery. The chapter discusses the risks associated with assisted reproductive technologies to overcome human infertility. © 2009
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Sperm Biology |
| Subtitle of host publication | An Evolutionary Perspective |
| Editors | Tim R. Birkhead, David J. Hosken, Scott Pitnick |
| Place of Publication | Burlington, MA |
| Publisher | Academic Press |
| Chapter | 15 |
| Pages | 565-597 |
| Number of pages | 33 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9780123725684 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 8 Sept 2009 |