Favourable Outcomes From ‘mild’ In-vitro Fertilisation
(sz) In-vitro fertilisation (IVF) has come a long way since the early days of uncertainty, guesswork, and low pregnancy rates. The UK’s Human Fertilisation Embryology Authority’s (HFEA) guide to infertility1 provides national data for IVF treatments in 2003-04, showing a mean livebirth rate of 28% per cycle in women younger than 35 years. Many cycles of IVF treatment generate embryos that can be frozen for later use in the natural menstrual cycle, giving a cumulative chance of more than 40% for a livebirth per stimulated cycle for women younger than 35 years.
In view of this striking improvement in the efficiency of IVF, attention has increasingly turned to the improvement of safety and quality of care, and the patients’ experience of IVF treatment. Patients and their doctors often recall graphic television images of deep intramuscular injections, laparoscopies under general anaesthetic, and extended and stressful courses of treatment. Although many patients find IVF stressful because of the importance of the outcome to their lives, the treatment itself has become gradually but steadily safer and less unpleasant over the past decade. more…
From »Medical News Today«