IVF success increased by new way of picking embryos
Researchers claim to have developed a technique that could allow them to quickly and cheaply hand-pick IVF embryos with the best chance of making a baby – radically improving the chances of conception for millions of couples.
The research carried out at Oxford University and by fertility experts in the US was presented today at the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology meeting in London.
Around the world around five million babies have been born as a result of IVF. But only around one in three IVF cycles actually result in a successful pregnancy.
And at thousands of pounds per cycle that equates to a lot of financial and emotional pain for hopeful couples.
“Right now the suitability of an embryos is essentially a beauty contest,” said Dr Dagan Wells of the Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology who led the research.
Fertilised embryos from an IVF cycle are chosen based on how “healthy” they look. But the new technique holds the potential for screening embryos for defects in all 23 chromosome pairs — the main cause of embryo failure.
“You can have a textbook normal-looking embryo that actually has very abnormal chromosomes,” said Dr Wells.
The approach uses emerging gene-sequencing technologies –collectively known as “next generation sequencing” to rapidly screen the key genetic sequences of an embryo.
A single cell is taken from the IVF embryo while it is still in the test-tube. The cell is then screened for chromosome abnormalities before the embryo has to be implanted into the mother.
Next generation sequencing allows a much larger amount of genetic information to be sequenced much more rapidly, and potentially more cheaply, than existing methods used to screen embryos.
The researchers demonstrated the technique by testing embryos from two mothers before implanting them. One has successfully given birth, the other is expecting. That shows it can work, but not that it improves the success rate of IVF.
That will require a clinical trial which the research team say is now under way.
If it is proved effective in clinical trials , and significantly reduces the cost of screening embryos for chromosome abnormalities, it could become a routine procedure in IVF, said experts.
“I think it’s pretty exciting and I don’t normally say that,” said Sue Avery Director of the women’s fertility centre at Birmingham Women’s Hospital. “If it does improve pregnancy rates and is cheaper, it has real potential.”
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