Further clinical experience with testis hypothermia for infertility due to poor semen.

Chronic scrotal hypothermia to 25 patients with infertility and elevated testis temperature resulted in varying degrees of improvement over their pretreatment poor semen in 16/25. Pregnancy occurred in 6/25 "hard core" infertile couples (mean period of infertility 6.0 years) after wearing an evaporative scrotal cooling device for sixteen hours daily for a mean of 14.5 weeks. The offspring of such hypothermia-treated fathers appear to be normal. Varicocele, failed varicocelectomy, and "idiopathic infertility" are conditions suitable for such noninvasive hypothermic treatment. Discontinuance of hypothermia resulted in a return to pretreatment poor semen. Elevated temperature plays a role in poor semen.