IVF - Can Success Rates Be Enhanced?

A landmark development, which could help widen the scope of fertility treatments, has been achieved through the growth of human eggs from the nascent stage to full maturity outside the body.In UK, one out of six couples face fertility problems and so the question is that whether this development in any way offer some hope to all those people.

The majority of the opinion is that it presents an important step in the right direction but the general progress in research into the very basic secrets, related to the origin as well as the creation of life, gets measured by decades more than years.

For instance, around 66 percent of women, who are under the age of 35, undergoing in-vitro fertilisation treatment, will not conceive a baby after going through their treatment cycles. Specialists are not sure about the fact that why most of the IVF treatments fail but the development leading to advancement of knowledge along with the study of human eggs, which are grown in lab, could surely be encouraging signs for boosting rate of success in IVF.

The rate of success achieved through IVF treatment may give disappointing number but thankfully, due to the research, they are around 85 percent that what they were in 1991. A similar kind of pattern might be followed while transforming human eggs which are lab-grown into feasible treatment procedures. The research was carried out by one Professor named Evelyn Telfer and colleagues at Edinburgh University, the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh and the New York Center for Human Production.

Ten women, who were undergoing caesarean-section births had donated their eggs, which were grown from ovarian tissue.The research had gone on to provoke some tough questions, like why did few of the developed eggs mature in only 22 days in comparison to the five months, which it would have normally taken in the body and also why only 10 per cent of the eggs reach full maturity. The idea of the lab-made eggs attaining maturity should be same as that of the natural cycle was challenged by Professor Telfer. He had given out his argument that the fact it takes longer in the body because eggs have to work simultaneously with the hormonal cycle of a woman, which consists of a number of control mechanisms within the body.

Opinion of the ProfessorThe professor opined that he would like to describe the way eggs tend to grow outside the body in their system not as any kind of accelerated development but it is to be seen as development without any brake being put into it. As far as the logic goes, he felt that there was no concrete reason why human eggs should take a number of months to mature.He had also gone on to say that the main problem was the lack of basic knowledge about human eggs. Lack of progress made by IVF in the last 40 years is mainly due to the lack of understanding about the fundamental aspects of how human egg develops. He even believed that this kind of research work would allow them to give the necessary insight which they need.