Fig. 2.

Diagram depicting intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). ICSI is performed on mature oocytes obtained by oocyte pick-up as depicted in Fig. 1. A healthy motile, morphologically normal-appearing spermatozoan is selected with an injection pipette while a holding pipette secures a selected oocyte in position with its polar body-oriented at the 12 o’clock position. The injection pipette pierces the zona pelucida, passing through the oolema at the 3 o’clock position and the sperm is released at a 90° angle from the first polar body, in order to avoid the meiotic spindle apparatus