[Intracytoplasmic sperm injection can improve the fertilization limitation following in vitro fertilization during...

To evaluate whether or not intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) can improve previous fertilization limitation on conventional in vitro fertilization (IVF).

One hundred and thirty-six completed cycles in 113 patients with ICSI treatment were grouped. Group 1 was 106 cycles perform ICSI because of male factor, and group 2 was other 30 cycles with the history of fertilization failure and fertilization rate < 20% on conventional IVF, also assembling the cycles in group 2 according to the fertilization rate.

There was no significant difference between two groups in the rates of normal fertilization(70.49% vs 72.02%), good quality embryos (38.28% vs 38.81%), and clinical pregnancy (40.57% vs 40.00%) (P > 0.05). The fertilization rate of a majority of cycles (70.00%, 21/30) in group 2 was higher than 50%, and the mean of fertilization rates was 79.79%.

ICSI can improve the fertilization limitation following IVF during previous cycles, and the fertilization rates was similar to those treated ICSI because of male factor.