Background: Varicocele is a reversible cause of male infertility. However, there are conflicting data available concerning the benefit of varicocele repair for patients with nonobstructive azoospermia (NOA) and severe oligoasthenoteratozoospermia (OAT).
Objective: To address the benefit of varicocelectomy in patients with severe OAT and NOA with regard to their semen parameters and surgical sperm retrieval rate in those who underwent testicular sperm extraction (TESE) or testicular sperm aspiration (TESA).
Materials and methods: This retrospective cohort study was conducted on a sample of 13 patients diagnosed with NOA and severe OAT who underwent varicocelectomy for infertility treatment with no prespecified exclusion criteria.
Results: Thirteen patients were enrolled. Five patients were diagnosed with NOA; eight were diagnosed with severe OAT. For improvements in the semen parameters postoperatively, the semen concentration of all patients was significantly increased compared to the preoperative concentration (3.59 ± 10.0.8 vs. 0.25 ± 0.31, P = 0.02) and the remaining parameters were unchanged. Regarding sperm retrieval, three patients underwent TESE and two patients underwent TESA, in which all had positive results.
Conclusion: Varicocele repair was found to improve the semen parameters in patients with NOA and severe OAT and produced a successful surgical sperm retrieval rate in all patients who underwent TESA or TESE.
Keywords: Azoospermia; oligoasthenoteratozoospermia; varicocelectomy.
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