Reversible Male Contraception With Gold Nanorods

MTorrice writes "Men's options for birth control have significant downsides: Condoms are not as effective as hormonal methods for women, and vasectomies require surgery and are irreversible. Doctors and scientists have for decades searched for more effective and desirable male contraception techniques. Researchers in China now propose a nonsurgical, reversible, and low-cost method. They show that infrared laser light heats up gold nanorods injected into mice testes, leading to reduced fertility (abstract) in the animals."

The problem is statistics

[dargaud]

If a contraception method is 99.9% effective in its effect on procreative cells, for a female it means that out of the 500 eggs she may produce in her life, maybe one has a 50% chance to be fertilized (if taken at the right time, etc). Acceptable risk. For a male, it means that out of the 300 millions sperms contained in the average ejaculation, there will still be 300 thousand standing up in lines at Egg's door. That's one of the reasons why it's much more difficult to design a male contraceptive.

No thanks, I'll wait for Vasalgel.

[Luciano Moretti]

Injection in the testicle? No thanks. I'll take the injection in the Vas Deferens of Vasalgel, thank you. That is also closer to commercial use (human trials scheduled for this year, release targeted 2015) and has over 10 years worth of human testing in India. It is also reversible (USA rabbit reversal trial in progress right now) with a single injection of baking soda & water.

Re:The problem is statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of 300 million, 2/3 come out dead or swim in circles. Out of those, maybe a few thousand make it through the cervix. Then maybe 100 or so make it into the fallopian tubes. If the egg popped out more than a day ago, it's no good, and if it's not there yet, the half life of those few sperm is about a day.

So eliminating 99.9% from the start is pretty effective, given that a normal healthy couple only has about a 1 in 5 chance of conception in any month.

Perspective on this changes a lot between being a teenager terrified of getting the girlfriend pregnant to being a late-30's married man, hoping baby #2 will come after spending years and big money on fertility treatments to get baby #1.

Close enough

[sirwired]

Vasectomy reversal is difficult, expensive, and only works about half the time. I think it's pretty clear that the summary was referring to something with reversibility as a design point, not a workaround...

Re:Vasectomies aren't reversible?

[cusco]

When I was 21 my girlfriend accidentally got pregnant, miscarried, and almost died. At that time vasectomy reversals were new, cost about $10,000-$15,000, and had a 70% success rate. My thought process was 1) technology only gets better, 2) if I couldn't afford $15,000 for a reversal then I certainly couldn't afford a kid, 3) I never wanted to go through another miscarriage, so I got a vasectomy. It also had the unintended effect of 4) I got laid a lot more often than guys who were still fertile.

Six years later I went to get it reversed. The technology was now well-established, and microsurgery was becoming commonplace. It now cost $15,000-$25,000. The claimed success rate was still 70%. Both attempts were complete failures, as were over a dozen attempts at artificial insemination. It's been fifteen years now, and we no longer regret not having kids, but it took Rosa a long time to come to terms with our mutual infertility.

TLDR; never, ever, assume a sterilization procedure is reversible.

Re:key word

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I tried to use a female condom, it didn't stay in place, and the round part at the end sucked out lots of menstrate and sprayed it all over the bed. It was like CSI.

Better reversible male method exists

[reve_etrange]

There is already a long-standing, reversible male birth control method called RISUG [wikipedia.org]

RISUG employs an injection into the vas deferens of a copolymer which can be removed at anytime via a second injection of bicarbonate solution. The copolymer is believed to hold a matrix of stable ions which rupture sperm as they pass the affected part of the vas deferens. Decades of testing have shown the method to be almost completely effective. Because the sperm still exit the body, no immune response to built-up sperm develops (the major reason vasectomies are generally irreversible). I know an injection sounds scary, but it's with high gauge needle and a local anesthetic, and one injection would provide 5 - 10 years of protection (depending on amount of material).

Sounds a lot better (more effective, more reversible, less likely to have complications) to me than putting gold nanorods in your balls and heating them with a laser...

Re:Non-surgical

[reve_etrange]

Usually vasectomies or other occlusion methods lead to a build-up of sperm, which the immune system reacts against. The main reason vasectomies are generally irreversible.

The best method I know about is RISUG [wikipedia.org], which is another reversible male method employing an injection (into the vas deferens, not the testes). It lasts for 5 - 10 years depending on the size of the injection and has been nearly 100% effective in testing. There isn't much pharmaceutical interest in "cure" techniques (as opposed to "treatments") but there is a non-profit trying to make RISUG available in the US.