‘Patients freak out’: Leading andrologist says male infertility still misunderstood
Male fertility specialist Professor Robert McLachlan explains the implications of new data on male infertility.
Until recently, the male infertility factor as a contributor to IVF was limited to a yes or no tick-box on a couple’s clinical record.
That changed in 2020 when fertility centres were asked to provide the cause of male infertility, or spermatogenic failure, when known.
The first report capturing that data, released last October, revealed it was a factor in one in three of the 50,000 IVF cycles captured in the Australian and New Zealand Assisted Reproduction Database.
In most cases, the reason for male infertility was listed as idiopathic, reported the team from UNSW Sydney’s National Perinatal Epidemiology and Statistics Unit.
