17.05.13
‘Revelatory’ new IVF process could boost success rate to 78%
A new IVF procedure could dramatically improve the success rate of healthy babies, researchers at Nottingham’s CARE Fertility Group have found.
Taking a series of automatic time-lapse photographs of developing embryos can help to identify the best candidates for use in IVF. Currently 24% of mothers undergoing IVF have live births; the new technique could increase this to 78%.
Britain currently carries out 60,000 IVF treatments, costing between £5,000 and £10,000 per cycle. The new procedure costs £750 and identifies embryos based on the time it takes to develop from the first appearance of the fluid-filled cavity and the final moment before the embryo breaks through its protective shell.
Trials found those that took longer than six hours between these stages were likely to be carrying an abnormal number of chromosomes, which leads to failed pregnancies.
A study in the journal Reproductive BioMedicine Online took time-lapse images of 88 embryos that had been recorded previously for 69 couples at the clinic. 61% of the embryos ranked as low risk for abnormal chromosomes led to live births, compared with none of those ranked as high risk.
Professor Simon Fishel, managing director of the CARE Fertility Group said: “I believe it is the most exciting breakthrough we've had in probably 30 years. Every IVF practice in the world is unintentionally and unwittingly putting back into the womb unviable embryos that don't make babies.
“We hope to see a paradigm shift in terms of IVF. It's a game changer for everybody to have such an uplift in live birth rates. This is the beginning of something revelatory.
“Our work has shown that we can easily classify embryos into low or high risk of being chromosomally abnormal. This is important because in itself this is the largest single cause of IVF failure and miscarriage.
“The beauty of this technology is that the information is provided by a non-invasive process. So far we have seen a 56% uplift compared to conventional technology, giving our patients the equivalent to a 78% live-birth rate.”
But Sue Avery, director of Birmingham Women's Fertility Centre, said: “Unfortunately the study does not compare this exciting new approach with standard practice in embryology in which embryologists already look for the best embryos to place in the womb. Until the new technique is compared to current practice we cannot know whether different embryos are being chosen.”
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