More than 300 couples with HIV or hepatitis achieve pregnancies with semen washing
More than 300 couples with infectious diseases such as HIV or hepatitis B and C have participated since 2006 in a reproductive program that includes semen washing among its techniques, the only one in the Andalusian public health system and one of the few in Spain, which it has made a hundred pregnancies possible. José Antonio Castilla, Researcher in charge of the group D03-Human Reproduction of the ibs.GRANADA and Director of the Embryology Laboratory of the Virgen de las Nieves University Hospital, has highlighted that the Assisted Reproduction Unit of this center of Granada is an autonomous reference for special techniques of Assisted reproduction.
The semen washing technique is included in a program of attention to the reproductive desires of people with diseases, communicable infections, such as HIV and type B and C hepatitis, from which a total of 2006 couples.
These three hundred couples have undergone 427 treatment cycles, which have made possible 316 embryo transfers and finally 124 pregnancies, 39,6 percent of the initial total, has detailed Dr. Castilla. According to this embryologist, although there have been years in which semen washes have added up to forty, their number has gradually been reduced thanks to advances in pharmacological treatments for these types of infections.
All this has made it possible for these patients to have their illnesses “very controlled” and that there are fewer and fewer couples who have the virus “in their blood”. In those men who do have HIV "circulating" in the blood and in the semen, what this technique allows is to "wash" it to differentiate the sperm from the seminal fluid, Castilla has detailed, explaining that, once separated, a fraction of that sperm to the virology laboratory and another part is frozen.
When the laboratory confirms that the sperm are virus-free, those that were frozen are taken and the hormonal procedure begins for the woman who intends to become pregnant through in vitro fertilization. In the case of infected women, semen washing is not practiced, but a team made up of gynecologists and specialists in internal medicine evaluates and indicates when the best clinical conditions of stability exist in the patient and there is a lower possibility of contagion the mother to the fetus.
Since biological fluids that may have infectious viruses are handled, all this is carried out in an independent laboratory that prevents any possible infection of HIV or hepatitis. The program is available to any infected couple in Andalusia who have reproductive wishes and who intend for a pregnancy without any risk of contagion for the baby.
From the beginning, the whole process can last for about fifteen months, according to the current waiting list, Castilla pointed out, highlighting that the planned protocol has made it possible for couples from other provinces to only have to travel to the unit. from Granada on two occasions during the treatment. After the gradual reduction in the number of people who opt for this technique, the profile of those who accessed the program has also changed, since previously couples with infection and non-sterility used to appear and now there are more than, in addition to infection, they are sterile.