Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection ICSI

Many of the infertility cases may be attributed to the male partner. There are several possible causes:

• A low sperm concentration
• Low sperm motility
• Sperm which are not able to fertilise eggs because they are not functional due to some abnormality in their structure
• Combinations of some of these factors

In vitro fertilisation (IVF) has proven to be very effective for treating male infertility .This happens because the motile sperm can be collected and concentrated from the husbands semen and placed in direct contact with the egg in a culture environment in the laboratory.

There are cases of male factor infertility which cannot be addressed even through in vitro fertilisation, in these cases we make ICSI.

Intracytoplasmic sperm injection is performed as part of the IVF treatment process. Following egg retrieval and sperm collection (via self-collection or testicular biopsy), the sperm are microscopically assessed for motility, size and shape. Based on this assessment, one sperm is selected for intracytoplasmic sperm injection.

The selected sperm is gently injected into the centre of a mature egg (we will assess the egg first to ensure it is mature). If fertilisation is successful, the resultant embryo is then grown and transferred into your uterus (this procedure is referred to as ‘embryo transfer’).