Questions about use of IVF procedure for men

A medical worker works on an intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) station on Febuary 2, 2011 at the Erasmus Hospital in Brussels. GEORGES GOBET/AFP/Getty Images

Although use of an IVF treatment for male infertility, known as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), has doubled in the past decade, the procedure is not always associated with better outcomes, according to a new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

During ICSI, a single sperm is injected directly into an egg. The procedure, which was introduced in 1992, made it possible for many infertile men to father children.

"In the pre-ICSI days, couples with severe male infertility would frequently have to resort to donor insemination, thus eliminating the possibility of the man to be the genetic parent," explained one expert, Dr. Avner Hershlag, chief of the Center for Human Reproduction at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y.

"There are now millions of children and adults whose fathers had deficient sperm, and it is because of ICSI that they have been created," said Hershlag, who was not involved in the new study.

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However, the CDC study authors said that unlike conventional in-vitro fertilization (IVF), ICSI is much more expensive.

In conducting the study, the team of researchers, led by the CDC's Sheree Boulet, analyzed almost 1.4 million fresh IVF cycles reported to the U.S. National Assisted Reproductive Technology Surveillance System between 1996 and 2012.

Of these IVF cycles, 65 percent involved ICSI and about 36 percent involved male infertility. Among fresh IVF cycles, ICSI use in the United States increased from 36 percent in 1996 to 76 percent in 2012, the researchers reported.

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Questions about use of IVF procedure for men