What is "follicle aspiration, sperm injection and assisted follicular rupture" or "FASIAR"?
Follicle aspiration sperm injection and assisted rupture are abbreviated F.A.S.I.A.R.; “FAY-zur” or “FAY-zhur” if you will, and was a technique which we used at one time to try to help egg and sperm come together without having to go through the whole rigmarole of assisted reproductive technology, and yet have some of those features be present in what would otherwise have been a simple intrauterine insemination or IUI. We tried this method for a while and it seemed to be working quite well. Others had tried it before us and given it different acronyms, but the principle was always the same. The idea was that a needle would be inserted into the follicle as though an egg was going to be taken out of it, but rather than gathering the eggs in a formal way and mixing them in the laboratory, the egg would simply be forced out of the follicle through assisted rupture of the follicle, if you will, along with the injection of the sperm, so it had lots of theoretical advantages over the simple intrauterine insemination. The trouble is that up to this point it has not been shown to be superior to a simple intrauterine insemination and so the IUI, which is less involved and less costly, continues to be used, whereas FASIAR has not really caught on and is really awaiting confirmation that it's worthwhile over the IUI.
