Treatment of anejaculation with electroejaculation

Male infertility caused by anejaculation is common after spinal cord injury (SCI) and following retroperitoneal lymph node dissection (RPLND) for testicular cancer. Other conditions sometimes associated with neurogenic ejaculation loss are diabetes mellitus, multiple sclerosis, extensive pelvic surgery and adult myelodysplasia. Primary absence of ejaculation also has been described. Few treatment options exist for these patients, if they wish to father a child. With electroejaculation (EEJ), or the low-current stimulation of the ejaculatory organs via a rectal probe, emission of semen can be initiated in these men. In non-SCI-patients EEJ requires general anaesthesia. The collected semen is washed and the motile sperm fraction isolated before artificial insemination (AI) of the partner. At the University of Michigan 198 men have been treated between 1986 and December 1991. An ejaculate could be obtained from nearly all patients. A major obstacle to success is the severe asthenozoospermia and the poor functional quality of the obtained sperm samples. This can be caused by the EEJ-technique itself, as well as by the long anejaculatory status. A semen sample with at least 10 million progressively motile sperm cells, useful for AI, was obtained in 75% of the SCI men and in 87% of the men following RPLND. In the couples wishing insemination, 49 pregnancies were induced, accounting for an overall pregnancy rate of 35% per couple. Thirty five healthy babies have been born. Only three complications were encountered. At Hannover Medical School only few patients have been stimulated to date. We could obtain an adequate sperm sample for AI from all of them. No complications were seen. As the first couple has just entered the phase of AI with husband sperm, an analysis of these results would be premature. Electroejaculation combined with artificial insemination is an efficient and safe treatment of male infertility due to neurogenic anejaculation.