Vol. 42 (2): 400-401, March – April, 2016
doi: 10.1590/S1677-5538.IBJU.2016.02.05
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
RE: An easy, reproducible and cost-effective method for andrologists to improve the laboratory diagnosis of nonobstructive azoospermia: a novel microcentrifugation technique
Rosa Alice Casemiro Monteiro 1, Juliana Risso Pariz, 1,2,3, Patrícia de Campos Pieri 1, Jorge Hallak 1,2,3
1 Androscience – Pesquisa Clínica de alta Complexidade e Laboratório de Andrologia, São Paulo, Brasil; 2 Seção de Andrologia – Divisão de Urologia, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil; 3 Unidade de Reprodução Toxicologia – Departamento de Patologia, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Basil
Int Braz J Urol. 2016; 42: 132-8
Reply by The Authors,
“What a piece of Work is a Man” quoted William Shakespeare (1564–1616 AC). The diagnosis or confirmation of azoospermia or cryptozoospermia with this nouvelle technique of microcentrifugation proposed and developed by our group is an answer to countless hours of attending difficult cases of men investigated or presenting with non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA) and having to give them a truthful perspective. It is amazing on how many false-positive or false-negative results of simplified “spermiograms” in the last 18 years we have had the difficult task to confront and disagree, unfortunately the majority of them performed in Clinical Analyses General Laboratories, so common in Brazil, not always familiarized with sperm physiology or andrology lab techniques widely disseminated by World Health Organization manuals. Surprisingly, wrongful results are not unusual from single semen analyses performed in “andrology” facilities located inside some Centers with eyes mainly focused in performing Intra-Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) as the silver-bullet for dealing with male infertility.
