Icsi treatment for infertility

Icsi Treatment For Infertility

Intracytoplasmic sperm injection, popularly known as ICSI is a treatment where

eggs are fertilized in an IVF lab after they have been aspirated from the female.

The procedure requires injecting a single healthy sperm into the cytoplasm.

IVF treatment that uses the standard insemination technique requires approximately

150,000 sperm for each egg, and on the other hand intracytoplasmic sperm injection

requires just one good quality sperm per egg. The main use of ICSI treatment is for

male infertility cases.


IVF with ICSI requires using specialized micromanipulation tools and inverted

microscopes that help embryologists choose and select individual sperm in a

specially designed ICSI needle. This needle is then passed through the outer shell of

the egg in order to inject the sperm into the inner part of the egg. This results in

normal fertilization in about 75% to 85% of eggs that have been injected with sperm.

However, note that a woman first must be stimulated with medications and have an

egg retrieval procedure so that several eggs can be obtained for in vitro fertilization

and ICSI.


Most clinics use ICSI treatment only for severe male factor infertility. However, it

can be used in any case, with either gender.

People who go for ICSI treatment are mostly those who suffer from severe male

factor infertility but do not want donor sperm. Also, couples with infertility due to

sperm concentrations of less than 15-20 million per milliliter or Low sperm motility

i.e. less than 35% often go for ICSI treatment. Sometimes it is also used for couples

that have a low yield of eggs at egg retrieval.


The ICSI procedure includes holding mature egg with a special holding pipette.

A very delicate, sharp and hollow needle is used to immobilize and pick up a single

sperm.

Once the sperm has been picked, the needle is then carefully inserted through the

shell of the egg and in to the center of the egg. This way the sperm is then injected

there into the cytoplasm. The eggs are analyzed the next morning for evidence of

normal fertilization.


For most IVF programs, the fertilization rate is of about 70-80 percent. This is

however, different from pregnancy success rates which are shown to be higher for

IVF with ICSI than IVF without ICSI.

Success rates of IVF with ICSI vary according to the specifications of an individual

case, the ICSI technique used, the skill of the person performing the procedure, the

overall quality of the laboratory, the quality of the eggs, as well as the embryo

transfer skills of the infertility specialist physician.


Sometimes IVF with ICSI is done for low ovarian reserve situations in other words

when there are either a low number of eggs or the quality of eggs is low (or both).

In these cases, ICSI fertilization and pregnancy success rates tend to be lower than

usual. This is because the main determinant of IVF success is the quality of the

embryos which are further determined by the quality of eggs. In some cases, before

the transfer is done, assisted hatching is also done on the embryos. This is done so

as to maximize the success rate for the pregnancy.

Health & Medicine

Icsi treatment for infertility