We are excited to be getting a technology called IMSI up and running in the next few weeks. IMSI stands for Intracytoplasmic Morphologicall Selected Sperm Injection. In an normal ICSI cycle the embryologist selects the sperm for injection at a magnification of 400x however IMSI is where sophisticated optics allows a magnification of 7000 to 8000x therefore enabling a much better look inside the sperm to select sperm without vacuoles within the nucleus. A recent meta analysis suggested that both implantation and pregnancy rates may be improved over conventional ICSI by 2 to 3 times with reduced miscarriage rates.
As yet it is not clear who may benefit from this technique possibly men with 2 previous failed ICSI cycles, poor embryo quality or poor sperm morphology or high levels of DNA fragmentation. The technique is time consumptive for the lab staff and will add about another $750 of cost.
We expect to offer IMSI by mid July and will announce its introduction on our website. It will be available initially through our Auckland Clinic only.
Informative post. Thanks for sharing such a nice article. Liked the post. keep it up.
ReplyDeleteEgg Freezing Cost
Dr. Birdsall,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this information. I have heard mixed things about the availability for it for publicly funded couples. Some couples we have met were approved for it while on a publicly funded cycle (and they happily paid the additional cost), while others reported being denied it (even though it would help with poor male sperm morphology). The denial was specifically based on the DHB saying no couples could do this because all publicly funded treatment is to be free. This doesn't appear to be consistent nor make sense. Any thoughts?
Hi Angela,
DeleteSome DHBs have agreed to fund sperm selection techniques and we are working with the DHBs to ensure consistency of access