ICSI Vs IVF

Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injecton (ICSI)

Although Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) was introduced as an add on procedure to In vitro fertilization (IVF) for couples with severe male factors , now a days it is routinely used in most of the IVF centers. ICSI involves injection of single sperm into a mature egg.

ICSI has a clear cut edge in male factor infertility like low sperm count , poor sperm motility , abnormal sperm morphology , nil sperm count due to blockage etc. ICSI is also the best option when fertilization rates in previous cycles have been low.

In these cases the risk of fertilization failure after conventional IVF are high as the poor quality sperm may fail to penetrate the egg and result in failure. However, ICSI is Labour intensive and more expensive than Conventional IVF.

Conventional IVF involves standard insemination of eggs collected by egg retrieval and husband semen sample .

IVF is more successful in young couples with good ovarian reserve and normal semen parameters .Your chances of having a healthy baby using IVF depend on many factors, such as your age and the cause of infertility.

The current available studies that compare ICSI and IVF in couples with no male factor problems show neither method was superior to the other in achieving live birth, complications like multiple pregnancies etc.

The choice between both the fertility treatments would mostly rely on diagnosis and recommendation of your fertility specialist while its always great to have basic understanding of the process benefit & difference.