In the microinjection method called intracytoplasmic sperm injection, a single sperm is collected in a thin glass needle and injected directly into each egg in the laboratory. This method, which was first used in 1992, is one of the methods that is used quite often today.
To Whom Is Microinjection Applied?
Microinjection is recommended in cases where a classic IVF application is insufficient. Thanks to this method, even a low-quality egg cell can be well fertilized.
The method of microinjection is also preferable in the case of a decrease in the quality of sperm in men. Accordingly, a healthy and high-quality egg cell can be comfortably fertilized with a poor-quality sperm cell
In What Cases Is Microinjection Performed?
• The number of spermatozoa in a man with normal values should be 15 million and more for each milliliter of ejaculation. If this number is small, the sperm count can be increased using the microinjection process.
• If the sperm motility in a man is abnormally low, the ICSI technique can be used.
• In men with sperm morphological disorders, sperm forms close to normal characteristics can be detected and microinjection can be performed.
• If the antisperm antibodies in a man are abnormally high, immunological infertility may occur due to this condition. When sperm enters the female body, the female body reacts to sperm as if it were a virus or bacteria and tries to destroy sperm. For sperm samples, the washing process is applied and injected into the egg cells using the microinjection method.
• If sperm cannot get out of the body in order for men to produce sperm, or if it occurs quite a bit and inside the testicle due to a sperm production disorder, sperm is removed from the testicles by surgical methods and a microinjection procedure is performed.
The fertilization rate and sperm rate in microinjection processes are not related to each other. Even if there are only a few sperm cells in the semen, the fertilization rate remains the same. When using this method with a fertilization rate of about 70-80 percent, the result of pregnancy can be obtained even with a few sperm cells. In cases where sperm cells are not mobile enough, this method can also be used to solve the difficulty of sperm crossing the egg membrane.
Infertility can also occur when sperm shapes are distorted. In this case, the IVF procedures performed usually end in failure. The microinjection method, on the other hand, is much more effective in such cases in terms of fertilization and pregnancy formation.