MFI Ladies....Anyone hear of SCMA/Sperm Chromotin Structure Essay?

stei8086 · April 2011

Trying to do some more research as to why we have poor embryo quality. My husband has low everything, but the main problem is 0% morph. I know ICSI is supposed to fix that, but I don't totally buy that after two failed IVF's. Yes, I know, I have some egg issues (which I am in the process of more tests), but I want to find more info about the sperm too.

Has anyone ever heard of a SCMA to detect DNA fragmentation in sperm?

Has anyone had it done?

Did it help with diagnosis?

How long did it take to do the test and get the results?

Did DH get this ordered by urologist or RE?

Thanks for your help!!!

KDR1979 · April 2011

We also have 0% morph. We've had 3 fresh IVF's, 1 FET, 1 chemical pregnancy, and 1 early m/c (but twin) and 2 big fat failures.

We had karyotypes done (for ~$550 each), but my RE does not have much faith in the sperm DNA testing. At our WTF last month we brought this test up again. He said that ~10% of men who come back "highly unlikely to father a child" will father a child with ICSI, so he doesn't believe that it is very accurate. We did a money back program and only have 1 fresh IVF remaining. I started DHEA 25mg 3x daily by mouth last month and am trying to lose ~20 lbs before our last cycle. If that cycle fails, we will proceed with the sperm DNA test (cost is ~$500-1000-we are totally OOP) before using any refund money toward more IVF (I'm an also very nervous and wondering if we'll need DS since we've had "great quality" blasts for 3 of our 4 transfers).

Luckily for us, DH has an older, married brother with 2 kids and they are 100% okay with being our donor if it ever gets to that.

I am very curious to hear your RE's opinion on this test!!

Good luck!

Ginger71 · April 2011

Do you mean SCSA? (Also known as TUNEL test) We have had that and the sperm aneuploidy test done. I don't have time to write a post now but I'll post later about it.

stei8086 · April 2011

Yes Ginger! That is the test I am talking about. Give me details when you have time. Thanks and Happy Easter!

Edwina.McDunnough · April 2011

Everythiing you need to know about SCSA is HERE. It took about 2 weeks, and a big part of the fees is the shipping of the canister. You can do this with a fresh sample, but it's advisable to do it with a washed sample just so you know there is enough in there to run the test.

I'm told this is the only clinic that is DOH approved.

It's pretty controversial because it really can only indicate that you need to do ICSI, and if you're doing that already, then it's not telling you anything new. It can otherwise point to DS, but that interpretation is debatable.

We had a normal sample, so it helped us rule out sperm concerns.

Search: HERE.

Ginger71 · April 2011

Hi~

Sorry it took so long to respond...busy weekend.

I don't know what your situation is but we have been through 6 /IVFs. After #5, my RE felt that it might be something more than my eggs. We knew we had severe MFI (about 5 mil/2%morph/6%motility) I am AMA but he has seen women who do much worse than me on the stims have babies. He ordered the SCSA but we had to do it through the Uro's office and meet with the Uro to f/u and have him explain it.

We found that DH had a frag of 15% which is borderline. The Uro ordered the anueploidy test after that. We found that DH had elevated levels of chromosomal abnormalities with trisomy 16 and 18. One of my m/c was due to trisomy 16.

There isn't anything they can really do to fix the issues that they find so it is a bit controversial like E said. The only thing that can fix it is ICSI but ICSI didn't seem to be correcting our issues. Men with even higher rates of fragmented sperm can still have success through IVF. We were debating DS and that is why we moved forward with all of these tests. We had to make sure that it was still possible.

I took about 2 weeks for reults if I remember correctly.

Feel free to page me if you have any questions and good luck!

G

patchen30 · April 2011

My DH did the SCSA/TUNEL (these are fragmentation tests) as well as the aneuploidy test too. My RE didn't really want to order any of them but I wanted answers. He said what PPs say - even if the frag test comes back abnormal, you can still get pg w/ your DH's sprm. There is really no treatment. The RE I talked to at CCRM doesn't like the aneuploidy test b/c it only looks at a small sample that may not be representative, and again, there's no treatment.

If you want answers it can't hurt to do the tests - just remember the caveat that the results aren't hard-and-fast and you may get some ambiguous results.

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MFI Ladies....Anyone hear of SCMA/Sperm Chromotin Structure Essay?

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