IVF : In-Vitro Fertilization
literally means fertilization occurs outside the womb.
The IVF procedure involves putting together the woman's eggs and her husband's sperm in a sterile dish in a controlled environment within an incubator that acts as an artificial womb.
Fertilization is then allowed to occur.
The resulting embryos (usually not more than three) are replaced 2 to 3 days later.
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ICSI : Intra-Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection
involves the direct injection of a single viable sperm into a mature egg.
ICSI has been used very successfully in treating couples with very low sperm number (oligozoospermia), sperm with poor motility (asthenozoospermia), high number of abnormal sperm morphology (teratozoospermia) or idiopathic infertility.
Men who are azoospermic (absence of sperm in ejaculated semen) because of blocked or congenital absence of the vas deferens (seminal tract) or failure in spermatogenesis (sperm production) can also be treated by ICSI.
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Assisted Embryo Hatching
a procedure that involves the creation of a hole in the zona pellucida (equivalent to an egg-shell) of an embryo, usually at 8-cell stage prior to its replacement into the womb.
The presence of a hole in the zona pellucida helps the embryo (blastocyst stage) to hatch out of its shell so that it can implant into the womb and continue its development.
Assisted embryo hatching is usually recommended to women who are between 35 and 45 years old.
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Embryo Replacement
a procedure in which not more than 3 embryos are replaced into the womb of the woman.
It is usually done on Day 3 (8-cell stage) or Day 5 (blastocyst stage) of embryo development.
The embryos are placed into a catheter which is then inserted into the uterus.
The embryos are deposited on to the endometrium.
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Blastocyst Transfer
the replacement of a blastocyst (the last stage of pre-implantation embryo development) into the womb.
Usually only one blastocyst is replaced because of a high chance of it implanting the womb.
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Frozen-thawed Embryo Transfer
the procedure of replacing thawed embryos that have been frozen from a previous cycle.
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Embryo Cryo-preservation
the freezing of extra embryos from a successful cycle.
These embryos will be stored in liquid nitrogen until the time of transfer in the next cycle.
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Copyright © 2005 EMBRYONICS International Pte Ltd. All rights reserved. Last update: November, 2005