Infertility is failure of a couple to conceive after 12 months of regular unprotected sexual intercourse. Infertility could be either primary or secondary.(1) The male factor is responsible for 20-40% of cases. Causes of male infertility are divided into pre-testicular causes (hypothalamic-pituitary abnormality), testicular causes and post testicular causes. The testicular causes are classified into hypospermatogenesis, maturation arrest (MA), Sertoli cell only syndrome (SCO) and tubular hyalinization.(2)
Azoospermia is defined as complete absence of sperm in ejaculate. It is classified into obstructive azoospermia (OA), which is complete absence of spermatozoa in the ejaculate despite of normal spermatogenesis and non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA), which is absence of sperm due to testicular failure or hormonal disturbance.(3) Testicular biopsy is one of the main tools used for diagnosis of testicular causes.(2)
Aim of the Work:
The aim of the present work was to study the expression levels of microRNAs
210 and 34c5-p in seminal plasma of patients with idiopathic non obstructive azoospermia compared to their fertile counterparts and their correlation with testicular biopsy results.