ORLANDO, FL USA (UroToday.com) - In this AUA poster session, Dr. Michael Eisenberg presented evidence that suggests an increased risk of congenital anomalies for children who were conceived by assisted reproductive technologies (ART), so in their study, the authors wanted to assess the relationship between sperm quality and rates of congenital defects.
This was a retrospective study performed on the Texas Birth Defects Registry, in which authors used hierarchical linear modeling to determine odds of having a birth defect. The factors that were considered included semen parameters.
The authors presented data on 109 infants who had birth defects and 2 115 infants who did not. They presented in their findings that there was no association between semen parameters and birth defects in their studied population.
The authors concluded that decrease in male fertility has no impact on infant congenital defects. The main benefits of these findings are that, during counseling sessions, physicians may reassure their patients if there are problems with semen quality, there is a low likelihood that their infant will have any congenital problems. The discussion after the presentation also brought up the importance of dividing outcomes into major and minor birth defects to see if the effects were similar in both groups.
Presented by Michael Eisenberg, MD at the American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting - May 16 - 21, 2014 - Orlando, Florida USA
Palo Alto, CA USA
Written by Garen Abedi, MD, University of California (Irvine), and medical writer for UroToday.com
