Comparison of two ready-to-use systems designed for sperm-hyaluronic acid binding selection before intracytoplasmic sperm injection: PICSI vs. Sperm Slow: a prospective, randomized trial.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To compare, in a strict, randomized way, the efficiency of two ready-to-use systems for hyaluronic acid (HA)-intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) an HA culture dish (PICSI Sperm Selection Device) and a viscous medium containing HA (Sperm Slow). DESIGN: Prospective, randomized study. SETTING: Medical center. PATIENT(S) Fifty subjects per treatment group (100 total). INTERVENTION(S) One hundred ICSI treatments were randomly carried out with PICSI or with Sperm Slow for sperm selection. Randomization was conducted with sealed envelopes. Intracytoplasmic sperm injection was performed by a single embryologist with 5 years' experience in HA-ICSI. PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURE: good-quality embryo rate. SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: oocyte fertilization, pregnancy and implantation rate, and the duration of the ICSI procedure. RESULT(S) The good-quality embryo rate was comparable between the two groups (58.5% with PICSI vs. 56% with Sperm Slow). Overall there were no statistically significant differences in secondary outcome measures except ICSI procedure duration, which was 3 minutes longer in the PICSI group. CONCLUSION(S) Both PICSI and Sperm Slow allow comparable clinical efficiency in selecting HA-bound spermatozoa. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER ISRCTN72668039.