The Application Value of Rescue ICSI after Complete Fertilization Failure in Conventional IVF

Objective: To assess the value of intracytoplasmic sperm injection(ICSI) for of completely failed conventional in vitro fertilization(IVF) cycles.Methods: Rescue ICSI was performed on 85 metaphase II(MⅡ) oocytes in 12 conventional IVF cycles with complete fertilization failure.Thirty-four ICSI cycles(226 MⅡ oocytes) during the same period were included as control.Results: Patients' characteristics such as the hormone levels,the thickness of endometrium on the HCG administration day,the number of MⅡ occytes for ICSI and the average number of embryo transferred,were comparable in the two groups.The fertilization and cleavage rates in rescue ICSI group were 78.82%,91.04% respectively,which did not differ significantly compared to the control group(80.09% and 95.58%,respectively)(P0.05).Rescue ICSI showed a significantly lower proportion of good-quality embryos with ≥5 blastomeres on day 3 after oocytes retrieval than that of the control(13.11% vs 73.99%)(P0.05).The pregnancy rate in control group was 38.24% while no pregnancy was obtained in rescue ICSI group.Conclusion: The potential of the embryos ensuing from rescue ICSI to achieve pregnancy is extremely poor.Therefore,the application value of rescue ICSI after complete failure of fertilization is rather trivial.