2 days ago
AI Becomes A Blessing For This Couple Trying To Conceive For 18 Years
The anonymous couple had undergone several rounds of IVF over the years by visiting fertility clinics around the world.
A couple is finally expecting their first child after 18 years of failed attempts to conceive. And this is all with the help of artificial intelligence. A groundbreaking new method helped doctors find hidden sperm in the husband's sample which made in vitro fertilisation, or IVF, successful.
According to a report in CNN, the method called the STAR method, short for Sperm Tracking and Recovery, is offering new hope to men diagnosed with azoospermia. In this rare condition, no sperm is visible in a semen sample even after hours of careful examination under a microscope. A typical semen sample contains hundreds of millions of sperm but in cases like this, none can be detected through traditional methods.
The anonymous couple had undergone several rounds of IVF over the years by visiting fertility clinics around the world. IVF involves removing a woman's egg and fertilising it with sperm in a lab to create an embryo. The embryo is then implanted in the womb. But all their attempts failed due to azoospermia.
In a final effort, they visited Columbia University Fertility Center in US where doctors offered them a new AI-based solution. The STAR method uses artificial intelligence to scan semen samples and identify hidden sperm. All the husband had to do was provide a sample.
'We kept our hopes to a minimum after so many disappointments," the wife said in an emailed statement to CNN.
Using the STAR system, researchers scanned the sample and found three hidden sperm. These were then used to fertilise the wife's eggs and the IVF procedure was successful. She is now pregnant with the baby due in December.
'It took me two days to believe I was actually pregnant. I still wake up in the morning and can't believe if this is true or not. I still don't believe I am pregnant until I see the scans," she said.
Dr Zev Williams, who led the team at Columbia, explained how well the STAR system worked during their trials.
'A patient provided a sample, and highly skilled technicians looked for two days through that sample to try to find sperm. They didn't find any. We brought it to the AI-based STAR System. In one hour, it found 44 sperm. So right then, we realized, 'Wow, this is really a game-changer. This is going to make such a big difference for patients'," he said as quoted in the report.
The STAR system works by placing a semen sample on a specially designed chip under a microscope. A high-speed camera and high-powered imaging technology then scan the sample. It can capture more than 8 million images in under an hour. Once a sperm cell is detected, the system instantly isolates that sperm into a droplet of fluid. This allows embryologists to collect the recovered cells that they may never have been able to find or identify with their own eyes.
