Until recently, the clinical application of direct injection of a single sperm into the cytoplasm of an oocyte during IVF was not shown to be feasible. The demonstration of fertilization and live births by Palermo et al. in 1993 was the first successful application of ICSI. Since that time, ICSI has been performed extensively in multiple centers to treat patients with severe male factor infertility. To date, the success of ICSI procedures has been related to several factors: (1) the viability of the spermatozoon, (2) the quality of the oocyte, …

Since the birth of Louise Brown in 1978, there has been a steady improvement in success rates of IVF treatment. The pregnancy rates vary between IVF clinics, and from time to time within the same clinic. The success of individual IVF clinics may be found in league tables published by HFEA. The overall live birth rate per treatment cycle is about 20%. There are many factors that may affect success rates.
The overall live birth rates for IVF in the United Kingdom have improved from last year from 20.4%. to 21.6%. …

A number of different drugs and protocols are used in IVF treatment. Because the treatment is individualized, a couple may find out that their drugs and protocols differ from other couples. This is quite normal. The duration of treatment also varies with the drug regimen and ranges from 2-4 weeks. During the treatment, the patients usually attend the clinic for about 2-4 visits for monitoring.

Some of the commonly used drugs include:
• Clomip
• hene tablets and hCG
• FSH and/or hMG and hCG
• GnRh analogues (agonist or antagonist) and FSH or hMG …

Conventional or standard IVF treatment involves the administration of fertility drugs, monitoring of the cycle, collection of eggs, mixing eggs and sperm together outside the woman’s body in a culture dish or test-tube. Any resulting embryos are left to grow and the best 2-3 embryos are then transferred into the woman’s womb. Any remaining embryos of good quality may then be frozen for future use. In the United Kingdom a maximum of three embryos are replaced.
IVF cycle. The diagram below summarises the IVF cycle.

The original indication for IVF was tubal …