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(wz) Since August 2005 to December 2007, 260 Kenyan couples have had babies through assisted reproductive technologies whose popularity is on the increase in the country.
According Dr Joshua Norey, head of Nairobi In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) Centre and lecturer University of Nairobi, those who sought the assisted reproductive technologies (ART) vary in ages with women’s average age varying from 22 to 50 (mean age 35) while men vary from 24 to 69 at the mean of age of 45.
Speaking at the 32nd Annual Scientific Conference of the Kenya Obstetrical and Gynecological Society (KOGS) in Nairobi, Friday, Dr Norey said the result so far has led experts to recommend that couples with infertility in which ART treatment is indicated should be encouraged to access the service.
Dr Norey said infertility is a common problem affecting upto 10 percent of married couples. He said a systematic evaluation of etiologic factors forms the basis for choice of treatment and future fertility.
On the global perspective, Dr Norey said ART has become internationally recognized treatment options for some infertile couples.
He said that majority of the men (30 percent) among couples seeking ART in the country have shown a history of male factors infertility such as low sperm count, impotency and others.
Among women, said Dr Norey, 38 percent had tubal blockage and 22 percent of them had an ovular infertility.
Close to 9 percent of these couples came for ART on unexplained reasons and about one percent were single women.
Of the 41 percent of the fertilized through In Vitro means, success rate was close to 52 percent. more…

From: »African Science News Service«

(sz) The pregnancy status for women undergoing IVF treatment has been made clear to employers following a recent ruling from the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
European Union judges ruled that an Austrian woman undergoing IVF treatment, who was sacked three days before her fertilised eggs were implanted, was not pregnant under EU law. However, she was protected by the law on the equal treatment of men and women.
Rachel Dineley, employment partner and head of the national diversity and discrimination unit at Beachcroft LLP, commented: “With one in seven women experiencing difficulties in conceiving, many more women, and therefore employees, are undergoing IVF treatment. As a result, employers need to ensure they have the right policies in place to deal with it appropriately, both to safeguard the wellbeing of their female staff, and also to ensure they are adequately protected from a legal perspective.”
According to Beachroft, it is at the point of pregnancy that female workers have the protection of the Pregnant Workers Directive. The ECJ has now made it clear that IVF treatment is likely to fall within the Equal Treatment Directive, even if the employee is not yet technically pregnant. more…

From: »HRZone«

(cz) A 38-year-old Jerusalemite whose cells carry defective BRCA2 genes is apparently the first woman in the world in an advanced state of pregnancy with fetuses that were screened for the mutation as three-day-old embryos and selected for implantation when shown to be healthy.
Without the screening, the significantly higher risks for breast and ovarian cancer in females and slightly higher risk of prostate and breast cancer in males could have produced a malignant tumor in her children after they reached adulthood.
The breakthrough in-vitro fertilization plus pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) of fraternal twins - performed at Hadassah-University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem - offers hope to many defective-gene carrier couples around the world of having children free of their mutation.
The woman, who is due to deliver a healthy daughter and son in 13 weeks, had to undergo IVF in any case because of “mechanical infertility” in which her husband’s sperm could not pass through the Fallopian tubes into her uterus. more…

From: »The Jerusalem Post«

(wz) Eine kalifornische Biotech-Firma gibt Rätsel auf: Sie hat nur acht Mitarbeiter, ein einziger Forscher leitet die Experimente. Und doch gelang es ihr, erstmals einen Menschen zu klonen - was auch in Deutschland heftige Diskussionen auslöst.
Wohlig weidet sich Samuel Wood an seinem Triumph. 15 Fernsehteams hätten ihn zu seiner Forschung befragt, erzählt er, Tausende Menschen ihn um Hilfe gebeten, und bei Wikipedia gebe es jetzt eine Kategorie über Menschen, die sich klonen ließen - seinetwegen. Dass der Vatikan seine Arbeit verdammt hat, bekümmert ihn wenig. Dass Präsident Bush dazu aufrief, das Klonen zu ächten, amüsiert ihn. “Das waren aufregende Tage”, sagt der 49-Jährige und wippt in seinem Bürosessel.
Noch vor wenigen Wochen hatten nicht viele von Samuel Wood gehört, kaum jemand etwas über seine Firma Stemagen gelesen. Und dennoch entstand hinter den einfachen Holztüren des Unternehmens in La Jolla, Kalifornien, weltweit zum ersten Mal mindestens ein Menschenklon: eine präzise genetische Kopie des Firmenchefs in Form eines Zellhaufens, wie Mitte Januar bekannt wurde. more…

From: »Stern« (Germany)

(sz) Doctors have found a way to boost the success rate of IVF in a ground-breaking study that halved the incidence of multiple births, by far the biggest hazard of fertility treatment.
Fertility specialists at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital who tested the new technique say they hope it will be adopted as a standard approach by IVF clinics that are striving to reduce the burden of twin and triplet births.
The technique involves growing the fertilised embryos for a couple of extra days in the laboratory and identifying the best single “blastocyst” – as the embryos are then known – to increase the chances of success.
Using the technique, the Guy’s and St Thomas’ specialists transferred one blastocyst to the womb, instead of the usual two or three, yet increased the pregnancy rate from 27 per cent to 32 per cent. At the same time, they cut the incidence of twins and triplets from 30 per cent to 17 per cent (some multiple births still occur because a single embryo can split to form identical twins). In all, 2,451 IVF cycles were performed comparing the two approaches between 2004 and 2007.
Yakoub Khalaf, who led the study published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (BJOG), said: “It is a myth that single embryo transfer lowers the success rate for pregnancy. If the right patients are selected for blastocyst transfer, success rates can be maintained and multiple pregnancy can be reduced.” more…

From: »The Independent«

(sz) Taiwanese researchers have successfully applied gene screening techniques to the in vitro fertilization (IVF) process and helped a couple carrying pathogenic genes of thalassemia to have a healthy baby girl last month, medical sources reported yesterday.
Researchers from National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) said the girl’s birth could also bring some hope to her seriously ill older brother, who was born two years ago and diagnosed at birth as having serious thalassemia or Mediterranean anemia.
Her umbilical cord blood, collected and preserved at delivery, contains the genes that can be used to treat her brother, with the aim of at least alleviating his symptoms even if a cure cannot be effected, they claimed.
Chen Su-yuen, a physician at NTUH’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, said both of the couple carry the thalassemia gene but neither have shown symptoms. However, the genes were passed onto the older boy and became dominant.
Chen said the couple went to his hospital for assistance with gene-screened IVF, in the hope that they could have a healthy baby and that the newborn’s umbilical stem cells could save the older child. more…

From: »The China Post«

(wz) As fertility-treatment costs soar — and more women seek treatment at an older age — a growing number of Americans are heading abroad to try to get pregnant.
The Internet has made it easier for women to connect with fertility clinics in diverse locales such as the Czech Republic, Israel, Canada and Thailand. And specialized travel services have sprung up to help people arrange accommodations, set up medical appointments and even plan sightseeing tours.
The cost of in-vitro fertilization in many foreign countries is a fraction of that in the U.S., even after factoring in expenses for travel and accommodations. And some women say they have been able to get treatment abroad after having been turned away by a U.S. clinic because of their age.
There are some downsides. Treatments can take four or five weeks — too long for many couples to take a break from their regular lives. It might not be possible to find medical practitioners who speak fluent English, though some of the travel firms also provide translation services. And while medical standards are high in many countries, regulations can vary, including rules for screening egg donors, leaving it to patients to do due diligence. In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration regulates egg-donor screening, though some states set stricter standards. more…

From: »The Wall Street Journal«

(cz) Women should have just one embryo implanted during fertility treatment to cut the chance of them having more risky twin births, experts warn.
The call to cut the number of multiple pregnancies created through IVF came as a British study showed that an emerging technique can achieve the same success rate with just one embryo as two.
Most women receiving IVF treatment are implanted with two or more embryos at one time, to maximise their chances of becoming pregnant.
The practice has led to a boom in multiple births - twins now make up one in four IVF births, compared to just one in 80 of those naturally conceived.
But twins or triplets are more likely to die before or during birth, or have profound disabilities such as cerebral palsy.
Scientists estimate 126 fewer babies would die every year if all IVF children were single births.
Dr Gillian Lockwood, of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’s ethics committee, said some IVF patients should be given one embryo to limit the number of multiple births. more…

From: »The Daily Telegraph«

(cz) Britain is facing an infertility timebomb because the increasing use of IVF means that couples with inherited fertility problems are able to have children and pass the condition on to the next generation, scientists report today.
Other factors contributing to future infertility include increases in obesity, sexually transmitted diseases and the number of women choosing to have children later in life. Couples who conceive using IVF pass on their genetic fertility problems to the next generation.
If the situation continues unchecked, within 10 years one in three couples will struggle to have children, compared with one in seven today.
Around one per cent of all births in Britain are the result of IVF or donor insemination and around 11,000 babies are born annually after fertility treatment. Each cycle of IVF costs between £4,000 and £8,000 and success rates are almost 30 per cent for women under the age of 35.
Writing in the British Medical Journal today, Prof Jens Peter Ellekilde Bonde, a professor of occupational medicine at Aarhus University in Denmark, and Prof Jørn Olsen, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, said: “With the advent of assisted conception, subfertile couples may have as many children as fertile couples, so that genetic factors linked to infertility will become more prevalent in the generations to come.” more…

From: »The Daily Telegraph«

(wz) This soulless eastern industrial town not far from the Czech border with Slovakia is the source of life for many women, who travel here to have test tube babies at private fertility clinics.
With its low costs and accommodating legislation, the Czech Republic has become one of Europe’s top destinations for foreigners seeking artificial insemination treatments.
“We get Americans, more and more Russians, Scandinavians, Germans, Austrians, and even groups of Israelis accompanied by a rabbi,” said Ladislav Pilka, a pioneer of in vitro fertilisation during the communist era and head doctor at the Zlin clinic.
Just like those seeking out cheaper dental care or cosmetic surgery in eastern Europe, would-be parents find out about the fertility clinic by word of mouth or through Internet “chat” forums, blogs or specialist sites.
Some companies even propose “in vitro fertilisation” holidays, one to three-week trips according to the type of treatment, with optional visits to regional tourist sites and spa therapy.
Zlin, better know in the past as the capital of Czech shoe production, won out as a destination “above all, because of the price,” explained 33-year-old Jennifer, an American who declined to give her last name. She wanted to boost her chances of having children while combining the medical treatment with “real holidays”. more…

From: »AFP«