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05-25-2004, 01:41 AM
<font size=4>Baby boy born from sperm frozen record 21 years</font>
By Patricia Reaney
LONDON (Reuters) - A baby boy was born after being conceived with sperm frozen 21 years earlier in what scientists say was a new record.
The case will give hope to young men about to undergo treatment for cancer which may leave them infertile.
The boy's father had his sperm frozen when he was 17 before undergoing treatment for testicular cancer in the early 1980s.
"I'm 99 percent sure that it is the oldest frozen sperm sample used (for a live birth)," said Greg Horne, a senior embryologist at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester, England, which treated the baby's parents.
The man's sperm was stored in liquid nitrogen nearly two decades ago and was not thawed until he married and decided to start a family.
Scientists injected a single sperm into the mother's eggs in a technique called intractoplasmic sperm injection, or ICSI, to create embryos. The boy was born two years ago following four attempts at in vitro fertilization, or IVF.
"Even after 21 years of storage, the percentage of motile sperm after thawing was high," said Horne, who reported the case in the journal Human Reproduction.
More on this Story (http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/story.jsp?photoid=/cp/news/top/i/sperm200.jpg&floc=FF-RTO-PLS&idq=/ff/story/0002/20040524/1359589534.htm)
By Patricia Reaney
LONDON (Reuters) - A baby boy was born after being conceived with sperm frozen 21 years earlier in what scientists say was a new record.
The case will give hope to young men about to undergo treatment for cancer which may leave them infertile.
The boy's father had his sperm frozen when he was 17 before undergoing treatment for testicular cancer in the early 1980s.
"I'm 99 percent sure that it is the oldest frozen sperm sample used (for a live birth)," said Greg Horne, a senior embryologist at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester, England, which treated the baby's parents.
The man's sperm was stored in liquid nitrogen nearly two decades ago and was not thawed until he married and decided to start a family.
Scientists injected a single sperm into the mother's eggs in a technique called intractoplasmic sperm injection, or ICSI, to create embryos. The boy was born two years ago following four attempts at in vitro fertilization, or IVF.
"Even after 21 years of storage, the percentage of motile sperm after thawing was high," said Horne, who reported the case in the journal Human Reproduction.
More on this Story (http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/story.jsp?photoid=/cp/news/top/i/sperm200.jpg&floc=FF-RTO-PLS&idq=/ff/story/0002/20040524/1359589534.htm)