Description

What is ICSI? Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) is performed as an additional part of an IVF treatment cycle where a single sperm is injected into each egg to assist fertilization using very fine micro-manipulation equipment. In most cases, ICSI can be used to overcome severe male infertility. IVF with ICSI involves the use of specialized micromanipulation tools and equipment and inverted microscopes that enable embryologists to select and pick up individual sperm in a specially designed ICSI needle. The needle is carefully advanced through the outer shell of the egg and the egg membrane – and the sperm is injected into the inner part (cytoplasm) of the egg. This usually results in normal fertilization in about 75-85% of eggs injected with sperm. However, first, the woman must be stimulated with medications and have an egg retrieval procedure so we can obtain several eggs for in vitro fertilization and ICSI. Why is ICSI performed? *Severe male factor infertility that does not *want donor sperm insemination. *Couples with infertility with: *Sperm concentrations of less than 15-20 million per milliliter *Low sperm motility – less than 35% *Very poor sperm morphology (subjective – specific cutoff value is debatable) *Having previous IVF with no fertilization – or a low rate of fertilization (low percentage of mature eggs that were normally fertilized). *Sometimes it is used for couples that have a low yield of eggs at egg retrieval. In this scenario, ICSI is being used to try to get a higher percentage of eggs fertilized than with conventional insemination of the eggs (mixing eggs and sperm together).

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