ICSI or not to ICSI – is ICSI the first choice technique

Yes, it’s helpful even for couples without a male factor. We need to consider if it is really necessary or if we can do 50% of eggs with ICSI and 50% with traditional IVF. Regarding perinatal outcome, it is a little better with traditional IVF, and there is always the risk to lose eggs when we use the ICSI procedure because it is more invasive.

If there is no male factor involved and you are getting a good number of eggs, I would recommend doing 50% of eggs with ICSI and 50% with traditional IVF.

The fertilization rate is the same if we talk about all patients, no matter if it is ICSI or traditional IVF, but there are always exceptions for every single couple or every single female.

Regarding fertilization rate, it’s the same, and it should be 80% of your mature eggs or the eggs that you are doing with traditional IVF. 40% is the pregnancy rate, not the fertilization rate.

That’s correct because when we are doing vitrification of your eggs, we do it only with mature eggs, then it’s only possible to do ICSI. It is not possible to do IVF. It’s we are denuding the eggs before the freezing. When we are having denuded eggs, it’s only possible to do ICSI and not traditional IVF.

Regarding the laboratory, there is no other technique apart from ICSI or traditional IVF. Regarding the sperm, we can use other techniques. We need to confirm if the problem is with the eggs, then we need to try to maximize the stimulation and try to retrieve the best quality eggs.

If there is a problem with the sperm, we need to do specific tests, and depending on the results, then talk with the laboratory and decide which is the best approach to select your partner’s sperm.

All papers confirm that babies born after IVF or ICSI have a bit more problems in terms of the perinatal outcome, but there is not a big increase. If we’re talking about the difference between IVF and ICSI, results are better in traditional IVF. Yes, we are forcing fertilization with ICSI, but sometimes it’s the only way to maximize the outcome of the technique of the reproductive treatment.

At Clinica Tambre, the majority of the egg donation cycles we perform with fresh donor eggs. Regarding the donors, there is not a problem with the eggs, we want to give you only mature eggs that will be able to develop to the blastocyst stage, so that’s the main reason why we do ICSI in egg donation treatment. We want to be honest with you, and we want to confirm the number of mature eggs of the donor because you remember only mature eggs will be able to reach blastocyst.

We can only confirm maturity with denudation, it’s the only way. If we’re doing IVF, we cannot do denudation, and we don’t know the maturity of the eggs until we know if the eggs are fertilized correctly or not.

After the denudation, the egg maturity is confirmed with the appearance of the polar body. This is how we confirm if it is metaphase 2.

Yes, of course, we will maximize all our efforts to select the best spermatozoa for ICSI, but we cannot confirm that we are selecting healthy or perfect sperm because we are doing the technique. We will make all the best efforts, but we can never say that 100% of sperm is healthy.

Yes, I have heard about this type of technique. We are not doing it in our clinic, but yes, it’s a kind of IVF where if I am correct, you place an egg with sperm in the woman’s vagina, and then you remove that, and you confirm if there is an embryo and then you put it in the uterus.

PICSI, IMSI refers to the selection of the sperm, not to the technique, which is always the same, ICSI is done after PICSI or IMSI. It is referring to the selection of the spermatozoa.

That is the reason why, when we are having male factor, we need to do specific tests such as DNA fragmentation, apoptosis, a genetic test on the sperm. Then we discuss with our patients the best approach for sperm selection, whether it is PICSI, IMSI or FertileChip.

Yes, even though it is a donor sperm or a couple without male problems, we will always select the best sperm. If we’re doing the Swim-up or gradients, we will always select the best sperm to maximize our efforts to achieve the blastocyst stage.

Yes, of course, PICSI is not always necessary. It depends on each sperm, and that’s why before starting the process, we will do a lot of tests on the sperm to confirm if PICSI or other techniques are necessary on the day of the egg retrieval before doing IVF or before doing ICSI.

We normally do the selection regarding the mobility of the sperm of the donor, so we normally do swim up after the thawing of the sample.

You place your semen sample in a tube, and you add some culture, and the best sperm will go swimming during the media for swim up. The best spermatozoa will move faster and will get to the beginning of the tube fastest.

IMSI is a selection of spermatozoa based on morphology, not mobility, such as swim-up. The majority of papers have confirmed that selection with IMSI is not increasing success rates.

Even though for IMSI you need a very specific and expensive technology in the laboratory, the majority of clinics are not using it because pregnancy rates are not much better.

FertileChip is only recommended when we have problems with the fragmentation of the sperm. If we are doing a fragmentation test before starting the process, and we see inside the head of the spermatozoa that the DNA is having fragmentation, especially in the double-strand DNA, then FertileChip is recommended. It’s a technique for different type of patients.

Swim-up is the routine, and it’s only selecting sperm based on mobility. If we want to exclude fragmentation before starting, high fragmentation of more than 60%, we need to use FertileChip.

From my perspective and the published papers, to maximize rates for all our patients, we need to maximize the number of eggs working with IVF in the laboratory.

In AneVivo, if I am correct, it’s only with one egg, so it should decrease your chances. If regarding ethics and religion, you are okay to go for traditional IVF or ICSI, I would recommend that rather than going for AneVivo.

We normally recommend single embryo transfer, but of course, it depends on each case, we can be flexible, but for 100% of our patients, we recommend single embryo transfer, so only one embryo.

It is difficult to answer. We cannot say that with 10 eggs, we will have one baby for sure, and we cannot say that with only one egg, we will not have one embryo. The more embryos we have, the higher chance of pregnancy.

Normally, we recommend to women over 38 having the culture to blastocyst, so it means to have embryos at day-5 with good morphology and perform genetic screening to confirm if they are okay or not. Our objective is to have a healthy baby, and that’s why all societies recommend a single embryo transfer. For sure, we need to confirm that this embryo, in particular, is good, so that’s the reason why we recommend culture to blastocyst and genetic screening.

If we’re talking about it without testing, I would never transfer more than two embryos because the embryos can split, I’ve never had that problem, but if you’re transferring two, you could even have a pregnancy of four. If you’re transferring four, it could be a problem, so we always want to make sure to have healthy mothers and babies.

That’s correct, it’s a very high risk, and we are always recommending single embryo transfer for all women, no matter how old they are. For women who are more than 45 years, I would never accept more than a single embryo transfer because it’s very risky.

When we’re talking about a patient over 45 and egg donation, there is an increased risk of having problems during your pregnancy, such as preeclampsia and premature delivery. If we are transferring 2 and you have a twin pregnancy, this risk increases a lot, and then you could have nearly 100% of problems during your pregnancy.

Our law in Spain does not allow it.