PICSI

Physiological Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection

In the ICSI procedure, an individual sperm is selected and injected into an oocyte. Until now, the only technique available to embryologists to select the sperm has been visual observation. Using PICSI procedure we are able to determine sperm selection in much the same way it happens in human biology. Sperms are placed in PICSI dish containing samples of hyaluronan hydrogel. Hyaluronan is a naturally occurring biopolymer found in all human cells including the gel layer surrounding the oocyte. Mature, biochemically competent sperm bind to the hyaluronan where they can be isolated by the embryologist and used for ICSI. This procedure mimics a key step in the natural fertilization process, the binding of mature sperm to the oocyte complex. As a result, the selected sperm is essentially the same as one that would be successful in the natural reproductive process.

The research proved that hyaluronan-bound PICSI-selected sperm are, in the vast majority of cases, more mature, exhibit less DNA damage, and have fewer chromosomal aneuploidies. All our units have this technology available in our labs.

Common Questions

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It is one of the method for selecting the best possible sperm for fertilization before doing IVF ICSI procedure.
There is no statistically significant difference in the fertility outcome between both the procedures according to recent studies.
In ICSI, the sperm selection is done by the embryologist who chooses sperm with good motility and good morphology. In PICSI, the sperm is selected using PICSI dish which makes sperm selection less subjective and is not dependent on the embryologist.
Because PICSI selects sperm bound to hyaluron gel in the PICSI dish, it mimics natural procedure. Hence this reduces abnormal sperm selection.