A new IVF fertility treatment that you could fit in your lunch break
(sz) A new approach to fertility treatment that could allow women to have a cheaper form of IVF in their lunch hour is being developed by a company that hopes to introduce it in Britain this year.
The Invocell device is designed to enable IVF to be performed without complex laboratory equipment and could make the procedure faster, more convenient and less expensive.
In standard IVF, eggs are fertilised with sperm outside the body, and any resulting embryos are then left to develop in culture for three to five days before the best ones are transferred to the womb.
The Invocell device is a sealed capsule that allows fertilisation to take place inside the body, in the vaginal cavity. A woman would first be given mild drugs to stimulate her ovaries, and then eggs would be removed from them while she is under sedation. Up to seven eggs are then put into the Invocell capsule, along with washed sperm. The capsule is then placed inside the vagina. After three days the patient would return for a second appointment, in which the capsule is removed and any fertilised embryos are examined for quality. The best one or two would then be transferred to the womb.
The first appointment would take about 90 minutes and the second half an hour, according to Claude Ranoux, of BioXcell, the Massachusetts-based company that developed the device. more…
From: »The Times«