First pregnancy in UAE using AI-assisted sperm detection offers hope for severe male infertility
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First pregnancy in UAE using AI-assisted sperm detection offers hope for severe male infertility

Doctors at Dubai’s Fakih IVF performed the procedure on a 32-year-old man

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Dubai-based Fakih IVF trialled the cutting-edge AI tool
Dubai-based Fakih IVF trialled the cutting-edge AI tool
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For the first time in the UAE, and in the Middle East as a whole, doctors have used an AI-assisted sperm detection tool to locate extremely rare sperm, and bring about pregnancy in a couple via IVF treatment.

Doctors at the Dubai-based Fakih IVF conducted the procedure on a 32-year-old man with Non-Obstructive Azoospermia (NOA), the most severe form of male infertility, and his wife is now 14 weeks into a normal, healthy pregnancy. The cutting-edge tool – called SpermSearchAI – was developed by NeoGenix Biosciences, an Australian company with which the clinic has an on-going collaboration.

Dr. Ranjith Ramasamy, consultant urologist at Fakih IVF, Dubai
Dr. Ranjith Ramasamy, consultant urologist at Fakih IVF, Dubai
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The young couple were, in fact, the first on whom the new technology was trialled at Fakih IVF. “We informed them about the AI software coming, so they actually postponed their surgery, and waited for SpermSearchAI to get involved,” says Dr. Ranjith Ramasamy, consultant urologist at Fakih IVF, Dubai. “I’m very happy it got utilised in their case and proved to be useful.”

The procedure in such severe forms of male infertility – where very few sperm are produced, and there are none at all found in semen analysis – is MicroTESE (Microsurgical Testicular Sperm Extraction), a biopsy where testicular tissue is extracted, and then studied under a microscope in the laboratory to find viable sperm. This is where SpermSearchAI, a convolutional neural network trained to detect live sperm in real time, proves invaluable.

“In the patients that we’ve treated so far, the software has reduced the search time by 50 per cent,” says Dr. Ramasamy. “It’s also helpful in identifying more viable sperm. If the embryologist is able to find, say, five to 10 sperm manually, the AI is able to find us about 20 to 30, so our options of using better-quality sperm with IVF has improved dramatically.”

The AI tool is currently being trialled at clinics globally to bring hope in such cases, but it is of particular significance in this region, according to Dr. Ramasamy.

“Unlike the US, Europe, Australia or India, there are no donor sperm options here in the Middle East,” he says. “Therefore, we need technologies like this in the laboratory to find those rare sperm, and give the option of parenthood – not just biological parenthood, but parenthood – to these couples.”

This content comes from Reach by Gulf News, which is the branded content team of GN Media.