Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) is a specialist form of IVF treatment that helps fertilisation occur when sperm numbers or quality are very low. Instead of placing many sperm around the egg, ICSI involves selecting a single healthy sperm and gently injecting it into the centre of the egg using an extremely fine needle.
For some people, particularly when sperm counts are very low, conventional IVF may not lead to fertilisation. In these situations, ICSI offers a way to give the egg the best possible chance of fertilising.
The overall treatment process is very similar to standard IVF. Your eggs and sperm are collected in the same way. In the laboratory, a single sperm is carefully drawn into a tiny pipette and injected into each mature egg. The following day, our embryology team will check the eggs to see whether fertilisation has taken place.
If fertilisation is successful, the embryo(s) will be transferred to the womb in the usual way.
ICSI is considered very safe, but like all treatments it does carry a small risk. In around 10% of cases, the injection process can damage the egg, meaning it will not develop further. Your care team will discuss this with you and support you throughout your treatment.
Newer techniques
Many babies have been born following conception through ICSI, and current evidence shows no higher risk of abnormalities compared with children conceived through IVF.
As ICSI is a relatively new technique, long‑term outcomes are still being monitored, and we will discuss any considerations with you during your clinic appointment. There is also a very small theoretical risk that male infertility could be passed on to a son, and we will talk this through in more detail if it applies to you.
For some men, no sperm appears in the semen at all. In these cases, we can sometimes retrieve sperm directly from the testicle or the surrounding tubes using a minor procedure called surgical sperm retrieval, carried out under local or general anaesthetic. Any sperm collected can then be used as part of the ICSI process to help achieve fertilisation.
If surgical sperm retrieval is recommended, we will explain the procedure fully and answer all your questions in the clinic.
