When a 36-year-old man named Chen was diagnosed with testicular cancer 13 years ago, he had some of his sperm frozen before chemotherapy made him infertile. This year, that sperm was used to successfully impregnate his wife, who last month gave birth to healthy twin boys.
The couple’s newborns marked a breakthrough in the field of reproductive medicine. It also set the record in Taiwan for the oldest sperm to successfully produce healthy newborns through artificial insemination, said Tseng Chi-ruey (曾啟瑞), dean of Taipei Medical University’s College of Medicine and chief of the school’s Center for Reproductive Medicine and Sciences.
“[They] are time-traveling babies,” he said.
Chen was 23 years old and still at school when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Following doctor’s advice, he froze a sample of his sperm at a sperm bank because there was a good chance that the chemotherapy necessary for treating his cancer would make him infertile.
Chen’s sperm was stored in a liquid nitrogen tank at a temperature of minus 198ºC. Sperm that has been stored at extremely low temperatures have all their chromosomes intact and have the same qualities as normal sperm, Tseng said.
The difference between fresh sperm and stored sperm is that the latter has reduced motility, which means that intracytoplasmic sperm injection must be performed for impregnation to take place, Tseng said.
Earlier this year, Chen got married and had Tseng thaw the stored sperm to perform artificial insemination. Tseng then placed four embryos into the uterus of Chen’s wife. Of the four, two successfully developed into healthy twin boys, born 37 weeks after conception.
“Both the mother and her children are healthy,” Tseng said.
Although Chen still needs to undergo regular check-ups and his testicles have lost the ability to produce sperm, he is in good health, Tseng said.
Tseng recommended that men about to undergo chemotherapy, who spend most of their time away from home or who plan to have children after receiving a vasectomy store their sperm in a sperm bank.
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