After my 20th shot of hormones, I texted my boyfriend. We decided to freeze the embryos, but after over a week of drugs making me feel like an inflated balloon and forcing me to take several secret naps a day, I no longer wanted to do anything. I didn’t care if it was frozen or not. I never did this again.
To maximize the number of eggs that can be harvested from the human body, most women undergoing egg retrieval spend two weeks injecting or injecting themselves with a cocktail of drugs at home. The drug sends the reproductive system into overdrive, encouraging the maximum number of egg-containing follicles to grow and mature at once. It can also cause itching, nausea, fatigue, sadness, headaches, moodiness, and severe bloating as the ovaries swell to the size of a juicy lemon. Some people experience overstimulation of the ovaries, which in rare cases can lead to hospitalization. the study I’ve found that the stress of fertile treatment is the main reason they stop pursuing it, even if Please take out insurance.
Many people who pursue IVF feel they have no other choice if they want to have children. “Right now, our treatment options are pretty binary,” said Pietro Bortoletto, director of reproductive surgery and co-director of oncology at Boston IVF. “We just put the sperm inside the uterus. Or we do IVF, which is a full-fledged Cadillac of treatment.” But a third option is emerging. This can reduce the cost and time pregnant patients spend at the doctor’s office, reducing side effects. It is called in vitro maturation, or IVM. While IVF relies on hormone injections to mature the egg crop within the body, IVM involves collecting immature eggs from the ovaries and maturing them in a lab. first ivm baby was born in Korea in 1991and since then this method has generally produced lower birth rates than IVF. Decades later, new science and technology are raising the possibility that IVM is a viable alternative to IVF, at least for some patients, freeing thousands of aspiring mothers from the brutal protocol. Masu.
The challenge with IVM is figuring out what to do with fragile, delicate human eggs that mature in cooking, not just in the ovaries. The few researchers and companies leading the push to make IVM more mainstream are taking different approaches. One Texas-based company, Cameto, uses stem cells to produce something similar to an ovary in a dish, mimicking the chemical signals an egg receives in the body. Last month, the first baby created using Fertilo, Cameto’s stem cell medium, was born. The Fertility Clinic at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, uses a technique that involves eggs being first collected and then allowed to rest and then ripen. Lavima Fertility, the company that disrupted the research at the Free University of Brussels, is working on commercializing the technique.
As of now, these new treatments are not commercially available in the United States. The Food and Drug Administration, which has historically not weighed in on the media that human embryos grow, asked Gamet ask for approval I sell fertilo. Gameto is currently preparing for Phase 3 clinical trials. Lavima may face similar hurdles. Older IVM methods are available in the United States, but are not widely used. Meanwhile, the company says dozens of women have fertile pregnancies in countries where they are being purified for use, including Australia, Mexico, Peru and Argentina. .
Compared to IVF, IVM is much gentler. Harvesting immature follicles requires only 1-2 days of hormone injections, or skips the process altogether. Reducing the dosage of hormones necessarily means fewer side effects and cases of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. (Although it may also reduce the long-term health effects of repeated exposure to these hormones. well researched. ) Skipping or cutting back on medications can also save women thousands of dollars and many visits to their provider for blood tests and monitoring. For women who live far from a fertility clinic or can’t commit to as many visits for other reasons, this protocol can make the difference between getting treatment, Bortoletto said.
Historically, IVM has Generate Compared to IVF, there are fewer mature eggs and embryos. The statistics are improvementbut even though IVM maintains an overall lower success rate than IVF, it may still be a better option for some patient groups. Egg donors, many of whom have undergone multiple search cycles, may be good candidates. Therefore, patients whose ovaries develop more follicles each month, due to their younger age or conditions such as PCOS, are hyper-responders. IVM clinicians can collect enough eggs from hyperresponders that even if a smaller number than is in the ovaries mature in the lab, the patient still has a high chance of pregnancy. These patients are most at risk for unpleasant or dangerous IVF side effects. IVM is a safer choice and can be an effective option. In a 2021 committee opinion, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conclusion This IVM reduced the burden of fertile treatment for these patient groups. In some studies of hyperresponders, 40% or height, number per IVM cycle Equivalent to IVF.
Many women seek IVF because they are approaching their 40s and have few eggs left. They probably aren’t good IVM candidates. However, IVM may work well for patients with fallopian tubes who want to have their fallopian tubes blocked, LGBTQ people, and young women who want to freeze their eggs. It may also be helpful for cancer patients. Many do not have time to go through long IVF cycles before starting fertility-threatening cancer treatments. Medical universities and pharmacies in Vietnam offer IVM primarily to women with PCOS, women who appear to have significant egg reserves, and women with conditions that prevent them from responding to hormonal stimulation. Lan Vuong, who heads the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, told me that the production rate at IVM is about 35%.
IVM can help reduce the physical and emotional sacrifices that fertility treatment requires for women at a time when more people than ever are seeking it. In several ways, the burden of IVF on women is increasing. To improve birth rates, new drugs were added to standard protocols in the decades since 1978, when the first IVF baby was born. Beyond IVM, some companies are exploring new ways to reduce pain points by replacing needle injections with oral medications. Some aim to have a milder side effect profile. Doctor every other day. Dina Radenkovic, CEO of Gameto, told me that in the infertility industry, there is “a growing recognition that fertility treatments must not only be effective, but also more humane.”
Knowing all this, I can’t help but imagine how different my experience would be. My doctor finally told me that part of the reason my cycles were so painful was that, even at the advanced age of 37, I was a hyper-responder.
