Male Factor Infertility

ICSI and Semen Analysis
Severe male factor infertility, once an impenetrable barrier to parenthood, has virtually ceased to exist due to breakthroughs in the field of fertility medicine. Advanced laboratory procedures such as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and semen analysis, offered at IVF Institute can help men overcome male factor infertility and realize their dream of fathering a child.

Fertility Preservation
There are a range of fertility preservation options available at the IVF Institute. If you would like to delay conception and child rearing to focus on your career, travel, or hobbies, or are planning to undergo cancer treatment and would like to help ensure your options are open once treatment is complete, these fertility preservation options are for you. Quite simply, fertility preservation, including egg, sperm, and embryo freezing, provides you with the means to delay your biological clock, as well as greater flexibility. We encourage you to learn more about these options. Many women are unaware of just how drastically the chance of successful conception drops between the ages of 20 and 35. Through fertility preservation, you can mitigate this factor altogether.

Egg Freezing
Also known as oocyte cryopreservation, egg freezing involves extracting a woman’s eggs and then storing and freezing them so that they can be used for in vitro fertilization at a later time. Once the woman is ready to become pregnant, these cryopreserved eggs can be thawed, fertilized outside of the body through ICSI, and transferred into the womb as embryos. At the IVF Institute, we employ vitrification for fertility preservation. This modern technique allows us to flash freeze the eggs, which produces a glass-like cell that substantially reduces the stress of freezing on the eggs. Because the outer shell of the eggs (zona pellucida) hardens during the freezing process, ICSI is required after the eggs have been thawed out.

Sperm Freezing
In addition to egg freezing, we also offer semen cryopreservation. For men who are undergoing a vasectomy or those who simply want to ensure they have options available to them, sperm freezing is an effective solution. Semen cryopreservation provides a prolonged time period within which sperm can be harvested; the longest reported storage duration for sperm that was then later successfully used to fertilize an egg is 21 years.

Embryo Freezing
This technique is well-suited to patients who are undergoing IVF treatment. Typically, an IVF cycle will result in several embryos. However, only one to two embryos are transferred into the womb for development. With embryo freezing, we can preserve the remaining embryos for later use, reducing the need for additional IVF treatment cycles. As with semen cryopreservation, embryos can be frozen for a long time with little to no impact on post-thaw survival. The longest reported storage duration for a frozen embryo which then produced a successful pregnancy is 16 years.