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How does a male partner’s age influence fertility treatment?

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8 fertility expert(s) answered this question

Answer from: Alexia Chatziparasidou,  MSc, PMI-RMP

Embryologist, Consultant Clinical Embryologist, Director of Embryolab Academy, Co-Founder of Embryolab Fertility Clinic
Embryolab Fertility Clinic
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Male fertility is dependant from the age so, as the male age advances, we do experience a reduction in sperm quality and sperm quantity and we do know (from our data) that nowadays, as the mean age of the parents advances, we get to have more elderly men attempting for IVF or ICSI and that means that we have to deal with sperm of lower quality due to sperm count factors or due to other medications that these men may need to take and all of these medication or health conditions (let’s say high cholesterol or some kind of a disease like diabetes), all of them may have an impact on the quantity and quality of the sperm. So, today we do know that as the age advances, we experience lower blastulation rate when these couples resort to IVF or ICSI technique, lower chances for pregnancy and higher chances for miscarriage and this is why there is an increasing recommendation as part of the awareness of the impact of the age factor on male fertility, to freeze sperm earlier in life when a man considers postponing parenthood for later and at ages above 40. It’s much better to have the sperm stored at the age of 35.

Answer from: Kevin McEleny, BSc(Hons), BM, FRCS(Eng), FRCS (Ed), FRCS(Urol), PhD

Urologist, Male fertility specialist, Urologist at Newcastle Fertility Centre
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As men get older, they become less fertile, so the chance of conceiving naturally decreases. This means they may be more likely to turn to assisted conceptions, they can’t conceive so, we know that men who are older, have a higher chance of resulting in pregnancies that are more likely to miscarry than younger men. Perhaps because there’s more DNA damage – it’s difficult to say. There’s also a chance, a slightly higher chance of certain abnormalities. It is increased in men who are older, so it can have an impact but obviously as with female age, you kind of are where you are with it and you’ve just got to deal with it in absolute terms. The kind of the risks of problems attributed only to age are still relatively low.

Answer from: Apostolos Georgiannakis, M.Sc., Ph.D

Andrologist, Sperm Quality Specialist
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We need to be very cautious when we answer that in a sense like mentioned before: each man can be different, each organism can be different. Overall, with increasing age, we certainly see problems related with sperm quality overall. When we say sperm analysis, we don’t necessarily expect to see decrease the number of the sperm found in the ejaculate, so sometimes when we compare Marcus who is 30 years old with Marcus who is 40, 50, sometimes we don’t necessarily see a marginal decrease of number of sperm in the ejaculate but we have an emerging data showing that with increasing age, the quality of the sperm DNA can decrease with the paternal age and that can be also affected by the lifestyle of the patient and from medical history of the patient. The decreasing quality of sperm DNA is the major factor related to male age.

Answer from: Raquel Arévalo Jiménez, Biologist with a Master degree in Human Fertility

Embryologist, Junior Embriologist
ReproMed Ireland
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Well, while the effects of female age on fertility have been known for a long time, more recent studies have found that the age of the male partner also has an important effect on the chances of pregnancy. However, the exact time when this starts to happen can vary among individuals.
As well as for women, men also have a biological clock so that male fertility generally starts to reduce around age 40 to 45 years old and it is related to a decrease in sperm quality. So, when male age increases, the overall chances of pregnancy decreases and on the other hand, the time to get pregnant, the risk of miscarriage and fetal death increases.
As we know, men start to produce sperm at puberty and continue doing so throughout their life. But during this time, there can be changes in the semen analysis and there can be oxidation of the sperm that reduces the capacity of the sperm to fertilize an egg. In addition, it is very important to highlight that damage to the genetic material contained in sperm increases with age. Moreover, illness, injuries, chronic health problems, lifestyle choices and other factors can contribute to male infertility evolving over the years.
Physiological aging of the male reproductive system is clearly seen in three aspects:
First of all we can see alteration in the seminogram. There is a slow but progressive reduction in the seminal volume, concentration, motility and normal morphology.
The second aspect related to the decrease of male fertility is the oxidation and damage of the sperm DNA chain. Over the years, sperm can be exposed to harmful environmental factors that cause a rise in the level of reactive oxygen species, well known as ROS. Factors related to lifestyle such as alcohol, tobacco, diet and environmental factors such as radiation and pollution have an important effect on oxidation too.
This aspect is related with the third one, mutations in sperm. Mutations have a huge importance in aging and are related to many diseases in born children.
I would like to focus on this fact, because DNA damage, fragmentation and mutation are some of the key points in pregnancy loss.
To understand this, I will talk a little bit about the development of sperm. The precursor of sperm is called spermatogonia, and it multiplies in fetal life and then stops until puberty, when it will be reactivated again.
During the period of active sexual life, the rate of multiplication is approximately 23 per year. So, for example, the sperm of a 38-year-old male has a history of around 500 divisions and a 50-year-old man has approximately 800. It is known that in every phase of cell multiplication there is a risk of mutation due to all the pathogenic agents that can induce errors in the DNA. Therefore, the risk is higher when more divisions have been made and it has a direct relation with the age of the male.
So, undoubtedly the age of the male has an impact on fertility and these effects are not only related with the alteration of the seminogram but also related with the alteration of the DNA of these sperm that can increase the risk of miscarriages and genetic disease in the offspring.

Answer from: Krinos Trokoudes, MD

Gynaecologist, Medical Director
Pedieos IVF Center
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Male age is important because after 45 years old, there begins to be an increase in infertility in males. And this compares to female infertility which begins at 38 years old, and it’s called at that point Advanced Maternal Age. So age is important for both sexes. It is earlier in life for women and a bit later for men.

Answer from: Àlex García-Faura, MD

Gynaecologist, Scientific Director
Institut Marquès
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During fertility treatments, the male partner’s age can give us some problems and difficulties, especially, when they are over 50. In those cases, even if those patients have already had healthy kids, they might have some problems giving us good success rates on fertility treatments because we do know that those patients will have the poorest quality on their semen analysis. Especially, they will have high a degree of DNA fragmentation on their spermatozoa, and they will also have a high risk of giving abnormal or aneuploid embryos that might finally give us implantation failure or the highest miscarriage rate.

Trying to reduce this problem related to the male partners’ age, we might need to use some specific sperm selection techniques and try to select the spermatozoa with lower fragmentation or lower risk of chromosomal abnormalities. In this way, we try to increase the implantation rates in those cases and reduce miscarriage rates.

Answer from: Diana Obidniak, MD

Gynaecologist, Director
Art of Birth Clinic
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While female fertility comes to the inevitable end with menopause (around the average age of 51), men are not constrained by similar biological senescence. Thus, the effect of male ageing on reproduction remains more controversial. Male ageing provokes direct DNA damage, increases DNA methylation, and compromises spermatogenesis. As a result, paternal age may harm reproductive outcomes. However, the studies on this topic demonstrate different results. Some of these studies have demonstrated that when the paternal age is over 40, there is a slight increase in the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes like, for example, pregnancy loss.

Also, we observe the elevated risks to children’s health, including the risk of rare birth-defects like defects in the development of the skull, limbs, and heart. Unfortunately, there are data on the association of advanced paternal age with autism and schizophrenia in children.

Despite the increase in these risks, the overall concern remains small and less urgent than those associated with the maternal age over 40.

Answer from: Miguel Ángel Checa, MD, PhD

Gynaecologist, Specialist in Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine
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The age of a man affects the results of IVF but this is related to the age of a woman. For example, in the case of a woman of 25 years old with a man of 30 years old, we have a pregnancy chance of around 50%. The same woman of 25 years old with a man of 60 years old has exactly the same pregnancy chances around 50%. But if we change the age of a woman to 40 years old, with a man of 20 years old, pregnancy chances are reduced to 38%. The same woman of 40 years old with a man of 60 years old will make the results fall dramatically to 20%. That’s the reason why we normally use egg donors younger than 40 years old for egg donation. This allows having greater results in egg donation IVF.

About this question:

What is the impact of male age on fertility treatment?

It’s a commonly known truth that a woman’s age influences her fertility and, therefore, any treatment results. But what role do the age of male partner play in the whole process? Could it be a decisive factor, or it’s less significant for the outcome of infertility treatment?

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