Added: 12/09/2005 |
Treatment for Infertility Relies on the Micromanipulation DescriptionThe evolution of Micromanipulation description has taken a long and winding road to its current point in medicine. From the beginning, micromanipulation was first clinically used in vitro fertilization (IVF with ICSI) in order to treat male infertility. The embryologist gathers mature ovums from a woman's ovary and keeps them under certain conditions at body temperature until they are ready for insemination. Meanwhile a semen sample is collected and checked by techniques to make sure that sample of sperm is as clean and active as possible. After several hours spent in culture, sperm and ovums are mixed and allowed to generate embryos.
Fertilization rates vary depending on the quality of both ovum and sperm. There are no guaranties that thirty ovum will give thirty embryos. At the same time, thirty fertilized ovum don't guarantee that they will turn to thirty embryos of the quality good enough for being penetrated into the woman's body. In case specialists are sure of good vitality of the embryos they don't need to implant too many embryos during micromanipulation. Thus the less number of embryos is transferred the lower the risk of multiple pregnancies is. So, the key here is to reduce the number of embryos and minimize the risks of pregnancy loss or abnormalities.
While continuing the micromanipulation description, it is important to remember that the development in this field has resulted in Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection, or ICSI. During this procedure ovum and sperm are collected and a single sperm is injected into the ovum. Sperm must be slowed down and cleaned before this process so that it could be seen through the microscopes and so that it wouldn't damage the ovum while too fast moving. Once a single sperm penetrates the ovum, 14 hours later it can be observed if fertilization has taken place. If everything goes as it was planned within 72 hours after the ICSI implantation of the fertilized ovum can occur. In many cases the number of embryos depends on the patient's age and her fertility abilities.
The great advantage of this type of micromanipulation description lies in the fact that sperm of any quality can be used as well as sperm taken from any level of the male reproductive tract. The only one criterion is that the sperm must be alive even if it is not moving. Fertilization can occur even through the use of dead sperm but genetic material contained in such sperm can't form vitality embryos.
ICSI micromanipulation candidates are also those men who have no sperm in their ejaculated semen. In such cases immature sperm is retrieved from the testicle or from other levels of reproductive tract. There are also cases when sperm is produced sufficiently but it doesn't live till the point of ejaculation. So, this type of micromanipulation is a chance for men who had no hope before to become a father. With almost unlimited potential to achieve certain level of fertilization with ICSI it may seem that men shouldn't be any longer concerned with fertility problems.
It should be noted in the micromanipulation description however that sometimes infertility can be caused by structural defects of the chromosomes and specialists usually recommend for all women having conceived a baby through ICSI to undergo prenatal screening. All in all, the future for the ICSI process is very promising. When providing a micromanipulation description researchers claim that the present-day fertilization rate of 65 percent will improve. It means that couples facing infertility still have ways out of their difficult situation.
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