ICSI treatment

In a woman’s ovaries follicles begin developing every month. Each menstrual cycle, approximately  one to 30 follicles will grow – the exact number depends on a woman’s age and ovarian reserve. As the cycle progresses, just one of those follicles will become dominant and release a mature egg.

During an ICSI cycle, much like in an IVF cycle, we use injections of a hormone known as FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) to encourage more of the follicles to develop mature eggs. These eggs are then collected under vaginal ultrasound guidance – called oocyte (egg) pick up (OPU) or oocyte retrieval. It’s a day surgery procedure which is usually done with a local anaesthetic and light sedation.

The male partner’s semen sample is prepared in Genea’s Andrology lab to find and isolate as many healthy, moving sperm as possible. Genea’s embryologists also prepare the eggs, removing the tight outer coating of cells to assess their maturity and ease the way for fertilisation.

Once everything is prepared, an embryologist uses a special needle-like instrument to pick up a single sperm and another instrument to hold the egg in place. All of this is done under the power of a microscope as sperm are so small they can’t be seen with the naked eye. The needle carrying the sperm is inserted through the egg’s outer coating and into the egg itself. The sperm is slowly injected into the egg. We develop the injected eggs in an incubator overnight and the next morning your scientist will check for signs of fertilisation. Another 24 hours, your scientist can determine how many eggs have gone on to form embryos. The developing embryos are monitored for several days, in Genea’s exclusive Geri^™ incubation system before one is transferred to the uterus. Patients are able to watch their embryos develop in Geri via our Grow By Genea^® app. If there are additional embryos, they can be frozen and stored for later use.

Not all eggs fertilise, and not all fertilised eggs become embryos.