Varicocele repair in patients prepared for intracytoplasmic sperm injection: To do or not to do?

PURPOSE: This study sought to evaluate the impact of varicocele repair on intracytoplasmic sperm injection outcomes.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: A prospective comparative study was conducted at the Assisted Reproduction Unit, International Islamic Center for Population Studies and Researches, Al-Azhar University. This study included 100 non-azoospermic infertile men with a history of varicocele who were scheduled for intracytoplasmic sperm injection, half of them had already undergone prior subinguinal varicocelectomy at least 12 months prior to ICSI without clinically evident recurrence (treated group 1), and the other half has any grade of an unrepaired clinical varicocele (untreated group 2) at sperm injection. All cases were clinically evaluated and eligible for analysis by using inclusion and exclusion criteria. ICSI outcomes compared between the two groups, including fertilisation rate, embryo development rate and pregnancy outcome.

RESULTS: Our study did not show any significant difference between treated and untreated groups regarding the mean values of fertilisation (0.7759 ± 0.2708 vs. 0.7119 ± 0.3057, p = 0.2708), embryo development (0.7759 ± 0.2708 vs. 0.6991 ± 0.3211, p = 0.1990) or different embryo grades. There was no statistically significant difference between groups regarding pregnancy occurrence rates (p = 0.0928).

CONCLUSION: Infertile men scheduled for ICSI do not seem to benefit from varicocele repair as regard to the outcomes of ICSI.