Assisted Conception Techniques: Which One to Choose

Abstract

Infertility or subfertility affects 8–12% of couples worldwide. Of them 40–50% is due to “male factor.” It is important to investigate all men undergoing infertility treatment before any clinical intervention is planned with the available assisted conception techniques. This will allow identifying patients with irreversible infertility to be separated from those with potentially treatable conditions or subfertility with suitable surgery and medication. In addition to medication and surgical infertility treatments to treat infertility, a new class of treatments known as assisted reproductive technologies (ART), also known as assisted conception techniques, are available for management of infertility. With the advent of ART and advances in clinical embryology, the thorough evaluation of the male partner is often overlooked. There have been many recent developments including aggressive new surgical sperm retrieval techniques for treating infertility due to male factor. There are other techniques that achieve success in fertilization through a single viable sperm by intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) techniques for men with very low sperm count as discussed in this chapter.