My husband and I have been going through tests for infertility. I am fine, but my husband has no sperm. They did a biopsy and found out that he has maturation arrest. He has the starting of sperm, but it never matures. I have searched the Internet and cannot find anything on this subject. If he has the start of sperm, can something be done medically to help those sperm mature? Or do we have to look into IVF or adopting?

-- Shaynee

Depending on the stage of sperm maturation arrest, it may be possible to harvest round cells (immature spermatocytes) and inject them into the eggs to attempt fertilization, as part of an IVF procedure. This approach, called ROSNI, is experimental and not performed by most IVF centers at present. Success rates after this procedure are quite low.

An evaluation as to why your husband has this problem is in order. If no obvious cause is determined, then chromosomal testing and DNA testing for microdeletions are necessary to make sure the condition will not be passed on to his male offspring.