Male Fertility Preservation

Freezing Sperm to Manage Potential Medical Risks

If you need to have treatment for cancer, it can affect your fertility – sometimes permanently. Hence if you would like to have the option of having children in the future, we recommend that you consider sperm preservation.

Both chemotherapy and radiotherapy can affect your sperm production, and once you begin either of these treatments, the sperm may already carry genetic damage,  making it too late to collect and preserve your sperm.

How Does Sperm Freezing Work?

We can collect and freeze some of your semen containing sperm before you start chemotherapy or radiotherapy treatment. You will be given a private room for collection, and our scientists will prepare and freeze the sperm quickly using a protective solution, and lowering the temperature gradually.

If, due to illness, there is no sperm in the semen, we may be able to collect sperm directly through a testicular biopsy. This surgery is performed under general anaesthesia. ICSI treatment is recommended when you are ready to use the sperm collected through this way.

Sperm can be stored frozen for many years and we find that between 25% and 50% will survive the sperm freezing process.