COSO, an ultrasound-based and reversible approach to male contraception

https://www.jamesdysonaward.org/2021/project/coso-the-new-way-of-male-contraception/

by gpvos • 5 years ago

41 69 5 years ago

I'd love to have effective male contraception.

But the previous work on this doesn't make it look like it's the answer: https://www.parsemus.org/humanhealth/ultrasound-male-contrac...

See the section "Effective contraception in humans remains elusive"

giantg24• 5 years ago

Yeah, those numbers don't look good - 20% motility and 50% of normal count sounds like potential for pregnancy. Maybe reduced, but still there.

strathmeyer• 5 years ago

Turns out "take a hot bath" doesn't make anyone any money. It's very common in poor countries such as India. (https://www.dontcookyourballs.com/)

dymk2• 5 years ago

DMAU as a pill or injection appears to be very effective. Studies are still ongoing. It’s been studied for a long time, and finally it seems there’s an appetite from men widespread enough to make it feasible commercially.

https://endocrinenews.endocrine.org/one-step-closer-is-male-...

I’ve done two drug trials with this stuff and it’s pretty cool. It appears to make men totally infertile while they’re on the drug, with a quick recovery once off of it. It might help prevent balding, too.

iSnow4• 5 years ago

That sounds amazing. It will come to late for me, but I wish it had been available when I was younger.

iSnow4• 5 years ago

I see a couple of acceptance problems with the device.

First, men a notoriously squeamish when it comes to their testicles. "Heating" without telling the temperature won't fly with many. I guess it doesn't have to be hot as it probably only needs to be warm enough to relax the cremaster muscles. If it has to be uncomfortably hot, I see little chance in the market.

Second, I'd expect the ultrasound to hurt. The epididymis is pretty sensitive to pain.

Third, it will feel like gambling as the female partner doesn't really know whether all sperm is killed or whether she will end up pregnant. And for the male, it will be a leap of faith as well. That should improve if a lot of users report no unwanted pregnancies, but in the beginning...

dgfitz2• 5 years ago

First, men a notoriously squeamish when it comes to their testicles.

That's quite an inaccurate blanket statement.

Second, I'd expect the ultrasound to hurt.

Ultrasound treatments are actually used to treat pain. Maybe you have evidence of ultrasounds causing pain, but I can't find anything of the sort.

Third, it will feel like gambling as the female partner doesn't really know whether all sperm is killed or whether she will end up pregnant.

Unprotected sex is always gambling, for BOTH parties, not just the female.

giantg24• 5 years ago

Testicular ultrasound can hurt, but usually it's only an issue if there's an existing issue like infection or torsion.

iSnow4• 5 years ago

Maybe you have evidence of ultrasounds causing pain

Anecdotally, I had an ultrasound years ago and it was most certainly uncomfortable. The body of the testicles was fine, but moving over the epididymis wasn't that great.

And no, no inflammation or anything.

giantg24• 5 years ago

4th, there's no data about return of fertility in humans after longterm use and if it raises birth defects.

iSnow4• 5 years ago

And 5th, I have no idea how long sperm remains viable in the prostate, but I imagine that you would have to ultrasound your balls regularly or end up with live swimmers in a very unpredictable way.

I'd imagine you'd destroy them and maybe their precursors, then have protected sex for 2-3 times to get rid of the viable sperm and only after that end up with 1-2 weeks of infertility.

clarkevans2• 5 years ago

Even so, providing direct control of fertility by a male partner is an important problem. Currently, the only control option that permits unprotected sex is a vasectomy -- this is expensive, requires many months, and is not always reversible. On the female side there is the UID and hormonal interventions -- both of which have downsides for the female partner.

dingdongbing11• 5 years ago

Why is it an important problem? We have hormonal and non-hormonal UIDs, many different types of pills, rings, and not to mention _condoms_ which actually prevents STDs. I don't have a problem with other guys heating their balls up, but where is the important problem?

horsawlarway• 5 years ago

Currently, the only control option that permits unprotected sex is a vasectomy

This isn't really true. Despite getting disparaged often - pulling out is an effective form of birth control (If done correctly, only slightly less effective than condoms: 96%).

Combined with tracking periods and being extra careful around ovulation dates, it works quite well.

Even if we assume improper methods in real world conditions, it's still about 75% effective.

It's not a method I recommend for casual encounters, but with a long term partner you trust - it can be extremely effective without the downsides of other birth control.

vidarh• 5 years ago

The pill can feel like gambling too. Yet lots of people rely on it, either in isolation or combined with another method. It may well be that people feel like it's gambling on its own but still end up finding value in it combined with the pill or with condoms or both long before people feel confident about relying on it on its own.

collegeburner2• 5 years ago

Yeah I physically cringed when I heard this, idk if I'd ever be able to make myself do it. Just stick to condoms.

tomcooks• 5 years ago

In the past men used to take really warm baths to temporarily become infertile, i assume this uses the same process

In related news: "coso" is used in italian to mean d.

Fire-Dragon-DoL• 5 years ago

To be fair, coso could be used to refer to any generic thing, male (in Italian language everything is male or female). Unfortunately given the context, this could only refer to that.

RegBarclay• 5 years ago

I wonder how long the effect lasts? How often would a man have to do this to maintain continuous contraception? Seems like there might be some long term effects from repeated ultrasonic treatment of any human tissue.

dgfitz2• 5 years ago

~2 weeks

raverbashing• 5 years ago

How long but also how long does it take before the procedure is done and your sperm is sterile. Minutes? Hours? Days?

rdl• 5 years ago

I'd love to see more innovation happening in this space. The one project I followed for a while seems to have stalled (or never really got off the ground) -- https://www.parsemus.org/humanhealth/vasalgel/ (which had solid results in India but got patented and locked up by a non-profit)

BurningFrog• 5 years ago

"So far, the procedure has been applied to animals. Therefore, the technical parameters are hypothetically transferred to humans."

poulpy123• 5 years ago

it's always a bad sign when the commercial slides and the nice 3D renders are ready before any scientific study of the device

gpvos• 5 years ago

The James Dyson award is a design award. On second view, this appears to be a master thesis project by a technical design student. So the product does not yet exist, and there are lots of problems with getting it there. I did not properly see all that before posting it; my apologies.

Nevertheless, it's an interesting idea to speculate about. And it seems to be one of the more promising ideas in this area.

phkahler• 5 years ago

> The technology of the COSO is based on a study of the Parsemus Foundation from 2012 in which successful research was conducted on ultrasound contraception.

Isn't that the same organization that has been claiming to bring RISUG to the US for the last 10 years with ZERO results? I'm starting to think they're actually a shill claiming to tackle this issue so that nobody else will. Their goal seem to be the opposite of what they say.

Tepix• 5 years ago

Here is the 2012 project that this product was inspired by: https://www.parsemus.org/humanhealth/ultrasound-male-contrac...

causi• 5 years ago

Feels like snake oil. There's no data on how the device uses ultrasound to destroy sperm. There's no data on how often it must be used to keep live sperm from getting to the prostate where they cannot be destroyed. The biggest section is boasting about how they had a bunch of guys off the street draw up idea for the appearance of the device. Red flag, red flag, red flag.

swader999• 5 years ago

How long does a ball heating session work for?

COSO, an ultrasound-based and reversible approach to male contraception

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