IVF NewsNews: UK couple to test embryos for hereditary breast cancer
Dr Jess Buxton 28 July 2007
UK doctors have been given permission to help a couple avoid passing on hereditary breast cancer to their children, the Times newspaper has reported. Paul Serhal, of University College London, has been granted a licence by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to select embryos free from the BRCA1 gene mutation that causes the condition in the family. The case is the first of its type, following the HFEA's decision last May to allow the use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) for 'lower penetrance' mutations that do not always cause disease.
PGD involves taking a single cell from a 2-4 day old embryo, performing a genetic or chromosome test on that cell, and then returning one or two unaffected embryos to the womb. In the UK, the use of PGD is regulated by the HFEA, which licenses the procedure on a case-by-case basis. Previously, it has only permitted the use of PGD for fully 'penetrant' gene mutations that always result in a serious illness, usually in childhood. In contrast, women with mutations in the genes BRCA1 or BRCA2 face up to an 85 per cent chance of developing cancer in their lifetime, often in their thirties or forties.
The licence application followed a year of research by the UCL team, to identify the precise BRCA1 gene mutation that is triggering the disease in the patient's family. Mr Serhal told the newspaper: 'This is an important milestone decision, because it has accepted the principle that this technique is appropriate for a gene that has an 80 per cent risk. It is a bold step by the HFEA, which means this family can root out a gene that has caused death and disease in generation after generation'.
The couple are not planning to start treatment until next year, however, as they are waiting to find out whether their local primary care trust will pay for the procedure. According to the Times, a second couple is still waiting for the HFEA's decision on whether Mr Serhal's team can test their embryos for a mutation in the same gene. If the licence application is granted, they plan to start treatment immediately.
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News: Top UK IVF doctor rebuked by regulator
Ailsa Taylor 01 August 2007
This month the UK's most successful IVF Clinic - the Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre (ARGC) - was told by the regulator that it will have to appoint a new person to take legal responsibility for the clinic, or face closure.
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News: Successful ovarian transplant produces embryo
Katy Sinclair 07 August 2007
Belgian doctors have announced the first successful transplant of ovarian tissue between non-identical sisters; and are reported to have fertilised a subsequent embryo. Although the embryo failed to develop, the procedure may offer new hope to women who become infertile following cancer therapy.
Teresa Alvaro became infertile after undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy to treat an inherited blood disorder. Having been told that the eggs in her ovaries had been destroyed by the aggressive chemotherapy and radiotherapy, Teresa gave up hope of naturally conceiving a child until reading an article claiming that an American woman had received ovarian tissue from her twin sister, and subsequently become pregnant. Teresa then contacted Jacques Donnez, from the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels, asking about the possibility of her receiving ovarian tissue from Sandra. The procedure, which involved transplanting three small strips of Sandra's ovarian tissue into Teresa, was undertaken successfully. The operation was more likely to be successful because Teresa had received and earlier bone-marrow transplant from her sister; because Teresa's immune system is built from Sandra's cells it did not reject the transplant and there was no need for immune-suppressing drugs. Seven months after the transplant Teresa began to menstruate, within a year the transplanted ovarian tissue began to produce eggs. Doctors then took two mature eggs from Teresa and fertilised them with her husband's sperm. Although the fertilisation was successful, the embryos failed to develop beyond the three-cell stage and doctors decided not to implant them. Mr Donnez commented: 'we do not know why the embryos ceased to develop, but this also happens during normal cycles of IVF'. Teresa has stated her intention to undergo further cycles of IVF. The success of the operation gives hope to women who become infertile due to cancer treatment. Dr Allan Pacey, Secretary of the British Fertility Society, commented that the most likely use of the procedure would be on women who had their own ovarian tissue removed and frozen before cancer treatment, and replaced once their treatment had come to an end. He said 'the science that underpins this type of transplant will be of great benefit in developing realistic fertility preservations options for young women who want to preserve their fertility prior to cancer treatment'. However, he also speculated that there could be a move towards woman to woman transplants, should suitable willing donors come forward. [ Full Article ]
News: Human Tissue and Embryos Bill report attacked
Katy Sinclair 13 August 2007
Lord Alton of Liverpool has attacked the Joint Committee report on the proposed Human Tissue and Embryos Bill, claiming that it 'misses the point'. His remarks are specifically aimed at the Bill's provision for human-animal hybrid embryo research, which the Committee has recommended be put to a free vote in Parliament. Lord Alton claims that the fundamental status of the embryo has not been considered, thereby ignoring the most fundamental reason to oppose the destruction and manipulation of embryos.
The draft Bill will replace the Human Fertilisation and Embryo Act 1990, which frames the UK's law around assisted reproduction and embryo research. The new Bill aims to update the law to take account of fast moving technological advances in this area, and to reflect current attitudes to the ethical and social issues surrounding this complex field. Lord Alton stated that the Committee had dodged the central issue. He said: 'paradoxically, the very features and potent attributes with which the embryo is endowed, underlines the unique characteristics which are attributable to human life from its very outset'. He argues that proposals to infuse the human embryo with animal cells disregard its special status, and demonstrates the lack of respect that is accorded to it. The Joint Committee Report also recommended that the Government undertake further research into the public opinion concerning scientific and ethical issues arising from assisted reproduction and embryo research. Furthermore, the Committee recommended that the Government and regulator take a more active role in cultivating the wider public's understanding of issues in this area. However, the Committee acknowledged that it was for Parliament to take the lead in setting the ethical framework surrounding developments in this area, while devolving decision-making to the regulators. Among other recommendations, the Committee has made it clear that an embryo should not be created from the genetic material of two women alone, or through cloning, and should have only two parents, one male, one female. The Committee recommended that the practice of creating 'saviour siblings' - where an embryo is selected to ensure genetic compatibility with a sick sibling who requires a tissue donation - not be limited to 'life-threatening' conditions, but amended to 'serious' conditions. The Committee does not recommend the practice of sex selection for non-medical reasons. The Committee recommended that the Government further consider whether a child created from donor gametes should have that fact recorded on their birth certificate. The Committee cited both privacy and the potential medical need to be aware of genetic history as important considerations in determining the correct policy in this area, as well as issues of human rights and data protection. [ Full Article ]
News: Cut-price IVF for stem cell research egg donors
Mackenna Roberts 18 September 2007
Women who donate some of their eggs to stem cell research will receive half-price discounted IVF treatment - a �1,500 stipend reducing the costs of one cycle of IVF treatment from �3,000 - at the Newcastle Fertility Centre. The Medical Research Council has recently awarded �150,000 funding to subsidise the IVF treatment and �760,000 towards research. Donor recruitment for the scheme began last Thursday and targets women in the North-East of England aged 21 to 35. The globally unprecedented 'egg-sharing' scheme is being run by the North-East England Stem Cell Institute (Nesci) in Newcastle, and was approved by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in July 2006. It received public support following a consultation in January 2007.
It is intended to make the benefits of IVF more accessible to infertile women whilst addressing the shortage of high quality eggs for human stem cell research, thereby assisting scientists to progress in the global race to seek stem cell therapies for degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Professor Alison Murdoch, head of the clinic, welcomes the funding to help 'ease the financial burden for those who require IVF' and often require multiple cycles to achieve pregnancy. She emphasises these women are not at any additional medical risk and that this option is being provided only to women who receive counselling and they must undergo the usual high-degree of scrutiny from local and national medical ethics committees.
In general, the IVF procedure results in a surplus of leftover eggs. These eggs would usually be discarded and now can be donated. A previous pilot egg-sharing scheme asked for two eggs if 12 are harvested for IVF, resulting in a total of only 66 eggs over seven months. This programme would significantly increase that number to meet the high demand for fresh eggs required by researchers 'to progress towards improving the efficiency of therapeutic cloning in humans' according to Dr Mary Herbert who will lead the research, and will further our understanding of 'underlying causes of infertility and birth defects'.
The eggs will be used in somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) experiments, so-called therapeutic cloning research, which aims to create human embryonic stem cell lines that are genetically matched to patients. However, some scientists argue that this technique is too imperfect a science at this point - the success rate is significantly less than 0.5 per cent and so involves using a high, inefficient number of eggs.
Josephine Quintavalle, from the group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, declared it 'lunacy' and exploitation of vulnerable, infertile women. The Scottish Council on Human Bioethics (SCHB) considers the move to be 'scandalous'. Dr Calum MacKellar, director of research at the SCHB, added, 'No rich person would even consider this kind of arrangement'.
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News: ASRM Urges Caution, Strong Counseling for Women Seeking Egg Freezing
ASRM 17 October 2007
Washington DC – The Practice Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine today issued a committee opinion saying that oocyte cryopreservation, or egg freezing, remains an experimental procedure that should not be offered or marketed as a means to defer reproductive aging.
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News: Scientists question the use of fertility hormone injections
MacKenna Roberts 27 October 2007
New research found that hormone injections to achieve pregnancy do not 'provide any added benefit' financially or medically in women under 40 as an alternative infertility treatment before advancing to IVF, announced head researcher Dr Richard Reindollar, from the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Centre in New Hampshire, last week at the annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in Washington last week. The comprehensive study indicates that the thousands of British women each year who receive follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) injections costing privately �800-�1000 per course for infertility treatment before resorting to IVF treatment may actually be prolonging the time it takes to become pregnant at unnecessarily increased costs and health risks than if they were to undergo IVF treatment straight away.
In the study of 503 infertile couples, those who were 'fast-tracked' to IVF treatment became pregnant three months earlier than those couples who underwent the daily injections together with artificial insemination (IUI) before, if unsuccessful, undergoing IVF treatment, which also involves ovary-stimulating injections but is coupled with the more invasive egg extraction and embryo implantation procedures. In practice, women typically begin treatment by trying clomiphene pills together with IUI and when that is unsuccessful most US and many UK clinics then offer a course of injections with IUI before performing IVF as a final treatment stage. Both groups were initially unsuccessful with pills and IUI and both had a similar chance of becoming pregnant. Ultimately 78 per cent of those fast-tracked and 75 per cent of those receiving injections were successful but the fast-tracked couples had a 40 per cent increased chance to become pregnant within the first eight months versus eleven months of treatment, and saved overall costs by an average of �5,000- reducing average payment from �35,700 to �30,750.
Women may also be placing themselves at prolonged health risk. The injections stimulate the ovaries egg production and have significant physical side-effects including headaches, abdominal pain and ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which in extremely rare cases can be fatal. They also increase the risk of multiple births by 20 to 30 per cent, which in turn increases the risk of birth defects and pregnancy-induced hypertension.
Contrary to National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidance, which recommends the NHS pay for hormone injections only for women with endometriosis, many private clinics offer them more generally often in cases of inexplicable infertility, according to Mark Hamilton, chairman of the British Fertility Society. Infertility affects one in seven British couples and Hamilton urges patients to carefully consider with their doctors the efficacy of infertility treatments before attempting treatments with lower success levels. Bill Ledger, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Sheffield felt this study adds to mounting evidence in support of the cost-saving elimination of injections and redirection of those funds into providing cheaper IVF treatment with an equal success rate without the delay.
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News: First IVM babies born in the UK
Dr Kirsty Horsey 29 October 2007
The first babies in the UK to be conceived using in vitro maturation (IVM) techniques have been born. The Oxford Fertility Unit - the first clinic in the country to be given a licence to perform the procedure - announced the birth of the twin babies earlier this month.
The Oxford clinic was licensed to offer the treatment in January this year by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). The procedure involves extracting immature eggs from ovarian follicles and maturing them in the laboratory, before returning them to the woman, who is then artificially inseminated in order to fertilise the eggs. The twins - a boy and a girl - were delivered one minute apart and are said to be doing well. The boy, born first, weighed six pounds 11 ounces and his sister weighed in at five pounds 14 ounces. Their parents have not released the children's names in order to protect their privacy.
The benefit of the technique over conventional in vitro fertilisation (IVF) is that women need not take fertility drugs prior to collection of the eggs, making it not only faster and cheaper but also a safer process, as the risk of ovarian hyperstimulation - an excessive ovarian response to the hormones used in IVF which, in extreme cases, can be life-threatening - is avoided. IVM could therefore be an attractive alternative to IVF in particular for women with polycystic ovaries or polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) who may be more at risk of developing ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome during fertility treatment. In addition, it is thought that IVM could also be useful for fertile women undergoing IVF because their partners have impaired sperm.
Currently, IVM has a lower success rate that conventional IVF, but fertility doctors believe that the technique will become better and IVM will become a standard treatment. Only a few centres across the world have the required expertise to be able to mature eggs in vitro and only about 400 babies worldwide have been born following conception after IVM, compared with about two million following IVF.
Earlier this year, the HFEA's Scientific and Clinical Advances Group concluded that no studies on IVM have suggested that the technique is dangerous and that no evidence of abnormalities in the children who have been born following the use of IVM have so far been documented. However, it also said that there is insufficient evidence to be absolutely certain of its safety as the number of children born is very few and those that have been born are still very young and that long-term follow-up studies of the children born following IVM treatment are required to determine if there are any possible effects of using this technique in treatment services. In advising those seeking to apply for a licence, the Authority said that if the technique is offered it should be with all relevant information and prospective parents should be strongly encourage to allow the children born as a result of IVM to take part in long-term follow-up studies.
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Announcement: Hands on ivf training for Gynaecologist &Embryologist at Embryogenesis-The International school of Embryology,chennai,India
Dr.VM.Thomas 08 May 2013
Intensive hands on Embryology training ( Numerous animal oocytes will be given for practice) Infertility history taking ,patient examination , pre IVF&ICSI investigation ,tests advised patient selection criteria, various ovarian stimulation protocols (COHS), tailoring protocols as per patient needs, performing trans vaginal ultrasonography, follicular growth monitoring semen analysis, semen culture, adjuvant drugs used in ART, management of OHSS and oocyte retrieval (pick-up) Frozen Embryo Transfer ,Egg donation and Embryo donation and surrogacy. hands on experience Sperm wash methods and Intra uterine insemination IVF Lab. basics, sterile techniques, culture media, preparation of culture dishes for IVF and ICSI (with and without oil overlay), handling of oocyte under stereo zoom microscope and insemination with sperms, sperm preparation for IVF & ICSI, denuding eggs, pronuclear stage observation, single culture and group culture,Day 3 and Day 5 embryo transfers, embryo transfer techniques, setting up of inverted microscope and micro manipulator system for performing ICSI, ICSI dish preparation, doing microinjection (IVF and ICSI hands-on) , advise regarding settings up of IUI and IVFlab ,Laser Assisted Hatching, Sperm Freezing &Embryo freezing, vitrification using cryloop and cryotop method. PESA, MESA and Testicular Biopsy Eligibility: Bsc, Msc, BVSC, MVSC, (Any Life science)MBBS, MD, MRCOG Course Duration : two weeks starts from 15th July 2013- 28th July -2013 Faculty:(National and International faculty is available for teaching and training programme) Dr.Thomas Dr.Ramya Dr.Samundi Sankari Dr.Buvaneswari Dr.Uma Ramesh Dr.Chitra Dr.Subhangi Dr.Anand Dr.Siva Dr.Arasi Dr.Khan Dr.Priya Dr.Munaf Mis.Deepa Mis.Neetu Dr.Saravanan Dr.Chitra Dr.Sarita Warm Regards Dr.Thomas Institute Director Chennai Fertility center and Research Institute Arubakkam Chennai +919841165197
Contact for Rigestration: Dr.Thomas Course Director Dr.Thomas Institute Director Chennai Fertility Center and Research Institute No :1&2 Sbi Officers colony Arumbakkam Chennai +919841165197 +919500084252 www.chennaifertilitycenter.com www.drthomasfertilitycenter.com [ Full Article ]
Announcement: From IVF to Immortality: Controversy in the Era of Reproductive Technology
IVF.net Book Club 30 November 2007
This is a book for anyone who has ever paused to wonder: Will cloning ever be legal? Why it is that 'saviour siblings' and sex selection provoke such strong reactions? Will there ever be such a thing as an artificial womb? Assisted reproductive technologies are unique in their capacity to challenge our assumptions and elicit passionate responses. Looking at the moral, philosophical, and legal issues surrounding cases of surrogacy, single or same-sex parenthood, retrieval of sperm from dead or dying patients, and the insemination of post-menopausal women, this book questions whether these rapidly-developing technologies are refashioning the nature of the family. The UK has played a unique role in the development and regulation of reproductive technologies, and has been at the forefront of controversy over 'saviour siblings', designer babies, reproductive cloning, and embryo research. This book provides a clear and simple account of the techniques involved in assisted reproduction and embryo research, and discusses the legal and ethical implications of some of these technologies, illustrated by compelling descriptions of real-life cases.The book also addresses the ways in which repro Finally, it contemplates the possibility that some of our most deeply-held assumptions about human nature may be called into question by further developments in stem cell research and fertility treatments. [ Full Article ]
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