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Thursday 2nd December, 2004
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Results showed that there were nearly as many deliveries in
both women who received one embryo
at a time and those who received multiple embryos.
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Nearly as many women who received only one embryo at a time gave
birth as women who received two embryos. At the same time the risk of
giving birth to twins is minimized. These are the findings of a major
study from the Sahlgrenska Academy, at G?eborg University in Sweden.
In-vitro fertilization, IVF, is a successful method to help childless
couples to become parents. To maximize the chance of pregnancy,
physicians have generally reintroduced more than one embryo. This has
led to a considerably larger proportion of multiple births compared with
spontaneous pregnancies. Multiple birth means two or more children in
the same pregnancy, most often twins. Expecting more than one child
entails greater risk. These children are often born prematurely and
often have low birth weight. To reduce the number of pregnancies with
more than one child, the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare
recommends that only one embryo be transferred at a time.
In the world's largest controlled study, scientists at the Sahgrenska
Academy in Gothenburg have compared deliveries in two groups of women
who underwent IVF. Half of the women first had one embryo transferred.
If it did not develop, they received a second embryo that had been kept
frozen until it was reintroduced. The other half of the women received
two embryos from the beginning. The study comprised 661 women under the
age of 36 from 11 clinics in Scandinavia.
"The results show that there were nearly as many deliveries in both
groups: 42.9 percent of the women in the two-embryo group gave birth,
compared with 38.8 percent of the single-embryo group," says Professor
Christina Bergh and specialist physician Ann Thurin, who were in charge
of the study.
The great benefit is that the proportion of deliveries with twins or
more siblings was minimal in the group of women who received one embryo
at a time. "In the single-embryo group, 0.8 percent of the deliveries were
multiple, compared with 33.1 percent of deliveries in the two-embryo
group," say the researchers.
In Scandinavia single-embryo reintroductions are already a routine at
many clinics. "The study findings will hopefully hasten developments
toward the introduction of one embryo at a time in other parts of the
world," says Christina Bergh.
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"In the single-embryo group, 0.8
percent of the deliveries were multiple, compared with 33.1 percent
of deliveries in the two-embryo group." |
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The studies findings are being published on December 2. 2004, in the
prestigious American medical journal The New England Journal of
Medicine.
Brief facts about IVF/In-Vitro Fertilization In IVF eggs are taken
from the woman's ovaries. The eggs are placed in a nutrient solution
together with sperm. Those eggs that become fertilized can be returned
to the woman and develop there into a fetus. Embryos of good quality can
be preserved frozen and be transferred to the woman in the same way,
after thawing.
The world's first successful IVF was carried out in the United
Kingdom in 1978, and since then around one million IVF children have
been born around the world. Scandinavia's first successful IVF was
performed at Sahlgrenska Hospital in Gothenburg in 1982. In Sweden some
2,500 children per year are born as a result of successful
IVF-treatment.
Sources
Thurin et al., The New England Journal of Medicine, Dec. 2,
2004; vol 351: pp 2392-2402.
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