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(cz) Doctors at Liverpool Women’s Hospital have helped develop a barcode system to prevent mix-ups in IVF treatment.
The system works by providing a unique barcode specific to each patient’s treatment, which is then used to label all equipment used for them.
Dr Stephen Troup, scientific director at the hospital’s Hewitt Centre, was involved in developing the coding which avoids repetitive checks by staff.
It was used for the first time for patients in Liverpool.
Dr Troup believes that the finished product, Matcher, should prevent mix-ups with eggs and sperm at clinics.
In 2002 in Leeds a white woman gave birth to black twins after a mistake at a fertility centre.
The system also produces an ID card containing photographs of the patients which they carry with them for the entire treatment. more…

From: »The BBC«

(sz) A nationwide group of fertility clinics will launch the nation’s first “ova bank,” a system into which registered women can donate ova at no cost to married couples seeking fertility treatment, it has been learned.
The Japanese Institution for Standardizing Assisted Reproductive Technology (JISART), a group comprising 21 private fertility clinics, plans to begin asking for volunteer ova donors for the bank by the end of the year.
The only way an infertile women–for reasons such as having had her ovaries removed on medical grounds–can get pregnant is through in vitro fertilization using eggs donated from another woman.
But with the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology (JSOG) not permitting eggs to be used for IVF from anyone other than a married woman who would become the mother, IVF using donated ova has rarely been performed domestically.
The United States has many commercial ova banks and several hundred Japanese couples are believed to have gone there to receive donated ova.
Japan is moving to regulate ova donations, though slowly. In July, JISART formulated its own guidelines for carrying out IVF with sperm or ova provided by a third party.
The ova bank is the next step on from this.
Women donating ova to the bank would, in principle, be mothers aged younger than 35. JISART will set the condition that there must be no compensation for donating ova, except for medical fees and other accompanying costs. more…

From: »The Daily Yomiuri«

(wz) In a finding that could boost the success rate of in vitro fertilization (IVF), researchers report development of a tiny “lab on a chip” to evaluate the fitness of embryos harvested for transfer. A report on the approach — which researchers describe as faster, easier, and more reliable than conventional embryo selection methods — is scheduled for the Sept. 1 issue of ACS’ Analytical Chemistry (”Noninvasive Metabolic Profiling Using Microfluidics for Analysis of Single Preimplantation Embryos”).
In the new study, Todd Thorsen and colleagues note that the current method for evaluating an embryo’s fitness for IVF involves microscopic examination of the embryo’s physical characteristics, such as cell shape, which is time-consuming and unreliable. Almost 130,000 women undergo IVF procedures each year in the U.S. alone, but the procedure has only a 30 percent success rate. To boost IVF success, doctors often transfer more than one embryo to the uterus, which can lead to multiple births and increases the pregnancy risks to mother and child. A better, more targeted method of embryo selection is needed, the researchers say. more…

From: »Nanowerk«

(sz) The use of in vitro fertilization (IVF) or another assisted fertility technique called intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) to conceive appears to increase the odds of Y-chromosome defects or “microdeletions” in male offspring, Chinese researchers report.
Such deletions could result in defective sperm production and possibly also hypospadias — a common birth defect of the penis that occurs when the urinary outlet develops on the underside of the penis rather than at the tip.
Although this study was small, it “at least sounds an alarm about the genetic safety of assisted reproductive technology,” the investigators conclude.
Prior research has tied assisted reproductive technologies with low birth weight, preterm delivery, cerebral palsy, and major birth defects, leading some researchers to hypothesize that these therapies may induce gene mutations.
In the new study, Dr. He-Feng Huang, from Zhejiang University, and colleagues sought to answer this question by testing for genetic mutations in 19 male infants conceived through IVF, 18 conceived through ICSI, and 60 conceived naturally. The fathers of the infants were also tested. In an effort to isolate the impact of the fertility treatment, the researchers only studied infants whose parents had a normal genetic background.
Huang and colleagues found Y-chromosome microdeletions in one infant conceived with IVF (5.3 percent) and in three conceived with ICSI (16.7 percent). By contrast, no Y-chromosome deletions were seen in the control group. more…

From: »Reuters«

(wz) Until a few years ago, egg donation was considered to be a ‘life-giver’ to many childless couples desiring their own children. But over the years, this charitable act has now become a lucrative trade. Egg donors today have more business concerns than social. In such a background, the term ‘egg donation’ seems to be a misnomer.
Many women from the lower income groups have taken to egg donation to support their families. It is fast becoming a trade with touts and a well-developed mechanism to get the business going. Fertility clinics have also cashed in on the boom.
So, what is this ‘egg donation’ business all about? Majority of donations are driven more by money than goodwill. The physical attributes of a donor decide the price of service. Costs vary from Rs 4,000 to 10,000 per cycle of donation.
Parul Kotdawala, an In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) expert said: “Price is a tricky issue. If the woman has desirable physical attributes such as fair skin and good features, the donation will fetch anything up to Rs 10,000 per cycle of donation.” more…

From: »ExpressIndia«

(sz) The fledgling fertility business of a few years ago has exploded into a giant industry; one that is largely unregulated by our squeamish government.
Americans don’t want Uncle Sam slithering between their bed sheets. But recent events in the field of human embryonic stem cell research suggest we’d do well to let the bearded geezer’s foot into the bedroom door a tad.
To quote Tom Friedman, “Let me explain.”
A few decades ago, the U.S. government was in a position to keep a close eye on, and perhaps even regulate, the fledgling fertility clinic business. Doctors were learning, pretty much by the seat of their pants, how to mix sperm and eggs in laboratory dishes to make human embryos that could then be transferred to the wombs of women who were having trouble getting pregnant.
The technology was a real medical and societal breakthrough. But the decision of how to deal with the newly emerging business of assisted reproductive technology was complicated because the field resided — and still resides — in a peculiar regulatory space. To the extent that it constitutes the practice of medicine, it is not subject to federal oversight. But to the extent it constitutes experimentation, it would be subject to a wide array of federal and international rules relating to research on human subjects.
As it turned out, the U.S. government did not want to go there. For one thing, baby-making seemed a very private matter. More importantly, the field was and remains a political hot potato, irrevocably related to the abortion debate and subject to endless sparring among those who do and do not think that microscopic human embryos have the same moral standing as late-stage fetuses or adults. That’s relevant because far more embryos are thrown away (or frozen indefinitely in liquid nitrogen) than are turned into babies at in vitro fertilization clinics. more…

From: »alternet.org«

(sz) Research suggests that singleton births following assisted fertilisation are associated with adverse outcomes; however, these results might be confounded by factors that affect both fertility and pregnancy outcome. We therefore compared pregnancy outcomes in women who had singleton pregnancies conceived both spontaneously and after assisted fertilisation.
Methods
In a population-based cohort study, we assessed differences in birthweight, gestational age, and odds ratios (OR) of small for gestational age babies, premature births, and perinatal deaths in singletons (gestation ≥22 weeks or birthweigh ≥500 g) born to 2546 Norwegian women (>20 years) who had conceived at least one child spontaneously and another after assisted fertilisation among 1 200 922 births after spontaneous conception and 8229 after assisted fertilisation.
Findings
In the whole study population, assisted-fertilisation conceptions were associated with lower mean birthweight (difference 25 g, 95% CI 14 to 35), shorter duration of gestation (2·0 days, 1·6 to 2·3) and increased risks of small for gestational age (OR 1·26, 1·10 to 1·44), and perinatal death (1·31, 1·05 to 1·65) than were spontaneous conceptions. In the sibling-relationship comparisons, the spontaneous versus the assisted-fertilisation conceptions showed a difference of only 9 g (−18 to 36) in birthweight and 0·6 days (−0·5 to 1·7) in gestational age. For assisted fertilisation versus spontaneous conception in the sibling-relationship comparisons, the OR for small for gestational age was 0·99 (0·62 to 1·57) and that for perinatal mortality was 0·36 (0·20 to 0·67). more…

From: »The Lancet«

(sz) Ian and Rebecca Bloomer, a British couple have become the first parents to have a baby using a pioneering IVF technique which fast-freezes embryos. The world’s “coolest” baby, who has been christened Evie, was born on the 23 of July this year.
Evie was conceived using an unconventional IVF method which is supposed to double the likelihood of childless couples having a baby of their own.
Vitrification is the method used to freeze the embryos. The embryo is pushed into liquid nitrogen which instantly freezes it at – 190 degrees Centigrade, without giving any time for crystal formation. The procedures used in the past took about 2-3 hours to freeze the embryo and this damaged it when it was thawed.
Mr and Mrs Bloomer had been trying desperately to have a baby since the last seven years. Mrs. Bloomer, 28 years of age, had endometriosis, a condition which was making it difficult for her to conceive. Normal IVF’s had failed for her repeatedly.
They attended the IVF clinic at the University Hospital of Wales, in Cardiff where their embryo was frozen using the new technique of vitrification.
Evie was born after her embryo was plunged into liquid nitrogen, the coldest form of freezing known to man, before being thawed and then implanted into her mum. more…

From: »The Med Guru«

(wz) A hospital which has adopted a pioneering technique to store embryos produced by IVF treatment has seen pregnancy rates double.
Seventeen of the 39 women offered the embryo vitrification treatment at the University Hospital of Wales’ IVF clinic in the last year have so far fallen pregnant, with four of them expecting twins.
The Cardiff hospital is believed to be the first in the UK to offer embryo vitrification and it is certainly the first to use new cryoleaf technology to carry out the process, hospital bosses say.
Lyndon Miles, head of embryology and andrology for IVF Wales, explained that vitrification involves rapidly cooling and storing cells at very low temperatures for future use.
“An IVF cycle produces a number of embryos,” he said. “Those that aren’t immediately transferred back to the patient and that are of good enough quality are cooled slowly to the temperature of liquid nitrogen (-196C) and stored until needed. more…

From: »Hospital Health Care«

(sz) Fertility clinics should send thousands of couples home without treatment, according to doctors whose research found that common frontline treatments often fail to improve a woman’s chances of having a baby.
The study, reported in the British Medical Journal, showed that many women who were given the fertility pill clomifene, or who had intrauterine insemination (IUI), which involves injecting sperm directly into the womb, had no more babies than those who were sent home with nothing but advice on when best to have sex.
Siladitya Bhattacharya, a professor of gynaecology and obstetrics who led the study at Aberdeen University, said the treatments amounted to an enormous and unjustified cost to the NHS. He said the money spent could be redirected to improve the availability of IVF, which is considered to be more effective.
Nearly a third of couples who have trouble conceiving do not have any obvious medical problems, and in almost every case they are offered clomifene or IUI. Clomifene is effective in women who have stopped ovulating, but is given to others in the belief that it may boost their chances of conceiving. IUI is designed to overcome any problems sperm may have in passing through the cervix.
“A number of treatments have crept into fertility clinics over the years and are now part of our usual repertoire, but as with many things in infertility, most of these have not been properly evaluated,” said Bhattacharya.
“Almost all couples with unexplained infertility will have one or both of these treatments, but neither of them is significantly more effective than telling the couple to just go home and get on with it, which is a lot cheaper and more fun,” he added.
Last year doctors wrote more than 20,000 prescriptions for clomifene at a cost of more than £170,000. Fertility clinics charge between £500 and £1,000 for a single course of IUI. more…

From: »The Guardian«