SARS‐CoV‐2 pandemic and repercussions for male infertility patients: A proposal for the individualized provision of andrological services

• Published in: Andrology (Oxford) Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 10 - 18
• Main Authors: Esteves, Sandro C., Lombardo, Francesco, Garrido, Nicolás, Alvarez, Juan, Zini, Armand, Colpi, Giovanni M., Kirkman‐Brown, Jackson, Lewis, Sheena E. M., Björndahl, Lars, Majzoub, Ahmad, Cho, Chak‐Lam, Vendeira, Pedro, Hallak, Jorge, Amar, Edouard, Cocuzza, Marcello, Bento, Fabiola C., Figueira, Rita C., Sciorio, Romualdo, Laursen, Rita J., Metwalley, Ahmad M., Jindal, Sunil K., Parekattil, Sijo, Ramasamy, Ranjith, Alviggi, Carlo, Humaidan, Peter, Yovich, John L., Agarwal, Ashok
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01-01-2021; John Wiley and Sons Inc
• Subjects: Andrology - organization & administration; azoospermia; COVID-19; Health Services Accessibility - organization & administration; Health Services Needs and Demand - organization & administration; Humans; Infertility; Infertility, Male - diagnosis; Infertility, Male - physiopathology; Infertility, Male - therapy; Male; male infertility; Medicin och hälsovetenskap; Needs Assessment - organization & administration; Opinion; Pandemics; SARS‐CoV‐2; semen analysis; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Sperm; sperm banking; systemic auto‐immune diseases; SARS-CoV-2; azoospermia; semen analysis; sperm banking; male infertility; systemic auto-immune diseases; opinion
• ISSN: 2047-2919; 2047-2927; 2047-2927
• DOI: 10.1111/andr.12809

The prolonged lockdown of health facilities providing non‐urgent gamete cryopreservation—as currently recommended by many reproductive medicine entities and regulatory authorities due to the SARS‐CoV‐2 pandemic will be detrimental for subgroups of male infertility patients. We believe the existing recommendations should be promptly modified and propose that the same permissive approach for sperm banking granted for men with cancer is expanded to other groups of vulnerable patients. These groups include infertility patients (eg, azoospermic and cryptozoospermic) undergoing medical or surgical treatment to improve sperm quantity and quality, as well as males of reproductive age affected by inflammatory and systemic auto‐immune diseases who are about to start treatment with gonadotoxic drugs or who are under remission. In both scenarios, the “fertility window” may be transitory; postponing diagnostic semen analysis and sperm banking in these men could compromise the prospects of biological parenthood. Moreover, we provide recommendations on how to continue the provision of andrological services in a considered manner and a safe environment. Our opinion is timely and relevant given the fact that fertility services are currently rated as of low priority in most countries.