Special Program of Assisted Reproduction

The Special Program of Assisted Reproduction (SPAR) is a program offered to HIV discordant couples (serodiscordant) at the Bedford Research Foundation's clinical laboratory. The program takes advantage of ART (assisted reproduction technology) procedures (including "sperm washing") to assist couples achieve a pregnancy who would otherwise risk transmitting the father's HIV infection to the mother and the child through intercourse.

SPAR employs extremely stringent safety standards; samples will only be submitted for "sperm washing" and cryopreservation that have first been screened for HIV virus particles and infected cells by specialized molecular biology tests. Only samples that have been determined to have an undetectable HIV viral burden will be submitted for infertility procedures.

Assisted reproductive technologies (ART), such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), treat many disorders of the female, but until recent years, treatment options for male factor infertility were limited, and donor sperm was routinely recommended to achieve a pregnancy. Advances in ART, however, have created new possibilities for men with male factor infertility, including those whose sperm counts have been decreased by cancer treatment and other diseases, and men with incurable, sexually transmissible virus diseases.

Infectious diseases transmissible by semen for which there is no cure include:

  • Hepatitis B
  • Human T Cell Leukemia Virus (HTLV-1)
  • Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.