• starting treatment
• drug therapy
• surgery
• assisted reproduction
  • ART overview
  • IUI
  • IVF
  • ICSI
  • using donors
  • surrogacy
  • health care employees
  • genetic testing

assisted reproduction

Tackling fertility problems often begins with drugs to induce ovulation, or the surgical correction of structural abnormalities. However not all couples’ fertility problems can be resolved in these ways. If this is the case, you and your partner, may have to consider more advanced treatments, which are known as Assisted Reproductive Technologies or ART. For some couples, assisted reproduction technologies such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF) are the only treatment option. IVF and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) are the most commonly used ART procedures. In UK 1% of all births are the result of IVF or ICIS treatment.

The precondition for IVF treatment is that good quality egg cells can be obtained from the woman and that suitable sperm cells are present in the man. As the woman’s age increases, the quality of the egg cells decreases. Despite advances in the area of fertility, nothing can be done about the quality of egg cells. In contrast there is much greater opportunities for obtaining sperm cells from the man and, using the ICSI technique (injection of sperm into the egg), egg cells can still be fertilised with very few sperm cells. However if there are no (longer) any suitable egg cells, then egg cell donation, among other things, can be considered. If there are no (suitable) sperm cells, then donor sperm can be considered.

Although there are no guarantees with advanced infertility treatments, the success rates are encouraging. The latest UK figures show that 38,264 cycles of IVF treatment were performed. 44% of all cycles performed are ICSI cycles.

This section gives you more information about advanced infertility treatments such as IVF and ICSI, but also about IUI, egg and sperm donation and surrogacy.