





ICSI (Intra Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection)



The availability of this Intra-Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection, “ICSI” technique (which was developed and perfected by the Brussels University and our institution in St. Louis) means that men whose sperm previously were too weak or too few to fertilize in vitro (IVF), now have no problem fertilizing their wife’s eggs.

The fertilization rate per egg using ICSI is remarkably high now in our laboratory.  The fertilization rate per infertile coupe is over 99% if the wife has adequate eggs.  This technique is very cost effective and will give couples with severe male infertility the same chance as a couple with normal sperm.  In fact, we now do only ICSI with all our IVF cycles becuase we get such a high fertilization rate, superior to just mixing sperm in with the eggs and hoping they will fertilize.  We are very comfortable using ICSI for all our cycles, since we were the very first in the world to develop it, and have the longest history in the United States using ICSI.

Discovery Health Channel Documentary

How Does ICSI Work?


Historically in 1992, in Brussels and St. Louis, we shocked the world when we showed how we can take a single, almost non-moving “dead” appearing sperm and inject it into a woman’s egg, getting normal embryos and normal babies. So far, over a million babies have been born with this new technique from men who were otherwise considered hopelessly sterile. The babies are physically, mentally, and genetically completely normal, no matter how poor or miserable the sperm of the father.

We are so experienced and efficient with ICSI that there are no added fees for us doing it. ICSI is just a routine part of IVF for us.  The success of ICSI is very dependant on the right techniques, which we were the center to originally develop.  It is easy, unfortunately, for labs that are in too big a hurry to either damage the nucleus (“spindle”) of the egg or completely fail to enter the egg’s membrane. However, this is never a problem with us. For men, who would otherwise have to resort to donor sperm, we can find just a few weak sperm in his otherwise sterile appearing ejaculate. And this is more that enough to mico-surgically inject these few sperm into his wife’s eggs, fertilize them normally, and get her pregnant.


We were the IVF center that first developed all these ICSI related techniques and therefor we have the most experience in the world with it.  If you have had a vasectomy reversed that failed it is no problem.  We can just retrieve the sperm with no pain (believe it or not from your testes) and with ICSI and get the same high pregnancy rate. Of course, we can usually have success with the re-operating on a failed vasectomy reversal.  However, it is quite feasible to just retrieve sperm and do ICSI.  So that means that the history of having had a vasectomy should never prevent the man’s wife from having a baby.


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