Complete Fertilization Failure in ICSI

Abstract

Fertilization failure is one of the causes of infertility that becomes evident only after in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) have been attempted. Although the frequency of incidence of fertilization failure is low, if fertilization failure is encountered, medical treatment is usually stopped and serious psychological damage may occur to the patient. While fertilization failure in IVF can be dealt with using ICSI, there is no treatment for fertilization failure in ICSI. At present, clinical investigations are being conducted to evaluate oocyte activation in combination with ICSI to cope with fertilization failure of ICSI.

Phospholipase C-zeta deficiency as a cause for repetitive oocyte fertilization failure during ovarian stimulation for in vitro fertilization with ICSI: a case report

“…Recurrent ICSI-related oocyte fertilization failure occurs in 13 % of successive IVF cycles [26], raising a dilemma regarding the use of homologous versus non-homologous gametes in subsequent IVF cycles. Under this circumstance, detecting sperm PLC-ζ deficiency implicates the sperm, rather than the oocyte, as the cause of failed oocyte fertilization, thereby avoiding unnecessary oocyte donation.…”

Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection – Factors Affecting Fertilization

“…One of the major contributing factors for TFF after ICSI is 3 MII oocytes retrieved (Esfandiari et al, 2005a). The rate of fertilization failure increases as the number of injected oocytes decreases [142]. There is a higher chance of having no embryos for transfer and significantly lower pregnancy rates when less than five oocytes are retrieved compared to cases with 5 oocytes [143].…”

PLCζ disruption with complete fertilization failure in normozoospermia

“…Complete fertilization failure due to male factor has been mostly related to severe teratozoospermia, and specifically to globozoospermia [25,26], while it is very rare in normozoospermia. There are seven cases reported of AOA after complete fertilization failure in normozoospermia [8][9][10][11][12]19]; in some the cause was not clearly identified [8,10], or was due to an oocyte factor [9].…”