Male Fertility and Infertility

This contemporary account of male fertility provides a much needed bridge between those seeking to understand the subject from an evolutionary and biological perspective and those with clinical responsibility for the investigation and treatment of infertility. Accordingly, the first half of the book deals with the evolutionary aspects of male reproduction and sperm competition, sperm production and delivery in man and other animals, spermatogenesis and epididymal function, sperm transport in the female tract and the apparent decline in human sperm count. The second part of the book puts greater emphasis on clinical problems and opens with a discussion of intracytoplasmic sperm injection, its value and limitations. This is followed by a review of modern developments in the genetics of male fertility and proceeds to a further chapter on the role of surgical procedures used in the treatment. Semen analysis is critically reviewed and the molecular techniques now being used in preimplantation diagnosis and in the study of mitochondrial inheritance are fully described. Taken together these chapters, written by an international team of authors, illustrate the breadth of vision needed to tackle the problem of male fertility.