Surgical repair of varicocele: effective treatment for subfertile men in a controlled study

We performed a comparative study to evaluate the efficacy of surgical repair of varicoceles in improving fertility. A group of 224 subfertile men with varicoceles was divided into 141 patients who had their varicoceles surgically corrected and 83 who had not. A significant improvement in sperm density and percentage of progressive motile sperm was noted in the corrected group (p less than 0.01, p less than 0.05). Pregnancy rate was also higher in the corrected group (p less than 0.05). From this controlled study we conclude that the repair of a varicocele increases the chance of fertilization.