Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI)
Inttracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) is a practiced used during an in vitro fertilization treatment (IVF). With a typical in vitro fertilization treatment, the female’s egg and the male’s sperm are placed together anticipating that the sperm will go into the egg and fertilize it. However, with ICSI an embryologist will insert the sperm directly into the egg.
Why Would You Choose Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection?
Typically, ICSI is only used in cases severe male infertility cases such as:
- Oligospermia
- Teratozoospermia
- Asthenozoospermia
Oligospermia is the most common cause of male infertility and is where the male has a low semen volume or has a low sperm count. Typically this is when a male that has less than 20 million sperm per ml of ejaculate. A normal sperm count has 20 million per milliliter or more.
Teratozoospermia is when the male has abnormal looking sperm.
Asthenozoospermia is when the sperm doesn’t have the capability to move about spontaneously and vigorously. This is another common cause of infertility or decrease fertility in men.
If a male ejaculates and has no sperm in the ejaculate, then doctors may be able to recover sperm through an extraction known as Testicular Sperm Extraction (TESE). If a doctor recovers your sperm through TESE then it is necessary that you use ICSI
The ICSI Process
As mentioned above, ICSI is a practice used during IVF treatment cases. Therefore, if you have already undergone IVF treatment, then ICSI will be no different because both are done in a lab.
The doctor will give you drugs which will stimulate your ovaries and extract an egg once your follicle (which holds immature eggs) is at a good size. Once this is done, the male will give a sperm sample and an embryologist will insert the sperm into each egg that is recovered.
After the sperm is inserted into the egg, the doctors will see if fertilization occurred and that the fertilized eggs (embryos) are healthy. If this is the case then the doctors will place the embryos back into the uterus.
Cost of ICSI Treatment
ICSI ranges from anywhere around 1,000 to 1,500 dollars which is much cheaper than IVF treatment which runs around 12,000 to 15,000 dollars. These prices can fluctuate and depends on what is being treated and what is being used.
Will You Have a Healthy Pregnancy?
Normal pregnancies risk having birth defects about 1.5% to 3% of the time. ICSI treatment does somewhat increase the chances of your child having a birth defect, but it isn’t considerably noticeable in the statistics. If you have a baby that is male, then he may develop a fertility problem when he grows up because it may be passed on genetically.
ICSI Treatment Success Rates
If you choose to forgo ICSI Treatment, the success rate of the eggs getting fertilized is about 50% to 80%. However, you need to know that even though a sperm is inserted inside the egg, fertilization may not occur. And even if fertilization does occur, the egg may not keep growing.
But, if fertilization occurs then the success rate of couples who go through ICSI treatment is the exact same as a couple who go through IVF treatment.
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