Patients Get the Present When Genetics & IVF Institute Celebrates 25th Anniversary

Genetics & IVF Institute (GIVF), an infertility clinic in the greater Washington, DC area that serves patients from across the country and the world, is celebrating its 25th Anniversary by giving patients a 25% discount on Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) procedures completed between August 1 and December 31, 2009 at GIVF. (Medical eligibility criteria apply.) PGD normally costs $5,000, but with the discount, patients can save up to $1250.00

Thanks to a new testing program, Genetics & IVF Institute offers preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) for most inherited genetic conditions, including myotonic dystrophy, various muscular dystrophies, neurofibromatosis (NF), Cystic Fibrosis, Beta Thalassemia, Hemophilia A, Retinoblastoma, Myotonic Dystrophy, Duchenne-Becker Dystrophy, Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy and more.

GIVF's PGD laboratory also offers PGD for structural chromosome rearrangements and X-linked diseases through the use of a PGD technology called fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH).

Normally, PGD at GIVF costs $5,000. Thanks to the anniversary discount, patients who have a completed PGD procedure at GIVF before December 31, 2009 may save up to $1,250. Patients interested in learning more about the PGD program, the discount or other information should contact GIVF at 703-698-7355 or visit GIVF's website, http://www.givf.com.

Read more: http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2009/8/prweb2767844.htm

Life Begins... - Miscarriage stories of loss, hope & help
Pregnancy Stories by Age - Daily blog of hope & inspiration!
Stories of Pregnancy over 44 years old - sharing stories I find online, for inspiration!

Recent Keyword Searches: the oldest woman to get pregnant, shorter follicular phase infertility, can i get pregnant during menopause, post forty pregnancy risk, women 40 year old can get pregnant

I Used an Egg Donor

In every fertility book I've read—and I've read plenty—there's a final chapter called "Other Paths to Parenthood" or "There's More Than One Road to Motherhood" or something similar.

These chapters talk about egg donation and adoption, about grieving the loss of your fertility and accepting a different path. When you're starting fertility treatment, these are the chapters you avoid. You think they're for other people — women who began trying to conceive at age 42 (Hey, what did they expect?) or who lost an ovary to cancer (Unfortunate, but at least they have options).

You suspect it would be awful to be in their shoes, but you barely give the scenario a passing thought. Given all the high-tech procedures you've heard of — IVF, ICSI, PGD — you're confident that something will work for you. Maybe not on the first try, but eventually.

Read more: http://www.fitpregnancy.com/yourpregnancy/fertility_conception/i-used-an-egg-donor-40722747.html

Life Begins... - Miscarriage stories of loss, hope & help
Pregnancy Stories by Age - Daily blog of hope & inspiration!
Stories of Pregnancy over 44 years old - sharing stories I find online, for inspiration!

Recent Keyword Searches: how many women over 40 get pregnant, up tol what age is possible to get pregnant and give birth, get pregnant at age 42, pregnant with low estrogen, can women get pregnant during perimenopause

RMA of New York now offers evening consultations

April 20, 2009 --Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York (RMA of New York) (http://www.rmany.com ) has announced the launch of evening appointments to new patients wishing to schedule a consultation at its main location in Midtown Manhattan. RMA of New York offers comprehensive treatment options including second opinion consultations, intrauterine inseminations (IUI), in vitro fertilization (IVF), preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), and oocyte cryopreservation (egg freezing). These services are provided by the award winning clinical team (http://www.rmany.com/our-team.aspx ) with extensive experience in reproductive endocrinology, urology and complementary care.

For more information, please call 212.756.5777 or visit http://www.rmany.com

Read more: http://www.newdesignworld.com/press/story/12470

Life Begins...
Miscarriage stories of loss, hope & help
http://born2luv.blogspot.com/

Stories of Pregnancy & Birth over 44y
- Daily blog of hope & inspiration!
http://pregnancyover44y.blogspot.com/

5,000 Stories of Pregnancy & Birth over 44y
Daily blog of hope & inspiration!
http://pregnancyover44y.blogspot.com/

Recent Keyword Searches: can a women get pregnant naturally at age 42, high fsh success stories, chances of 45 year old getting pregnant with an egg donation, improve uterine lining, getting pregnant at 48, singapore

IVF or DE/IVF in Argentina

Found this on FertilityFriend.com:

I came across this in my wanderings, I know nothing about this clinic, but it is affordable, might make a good vacation with some fertility treatment added in: argentinafertilityservices.com

For Donor eggs
They guarantee 4 eggs for $4,300 US, and 8 for $5,500, and donor meds are included in that price

IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) is $3,000 but meds are not included

First office visit (one-time only): US $300
*no other charges for further office visits

Assisted Reproductive Techniques (ART) with own oocytes (IVF or ICSI): US $3,000

Assisted Reproductive Techniques (ART) with donor eggs (IVF or ICSI):
At least four (4) eggs: US $4,300
At least eight (8) eggs: US $5,500

Assisted Reproductive Techniques (ART) with donor sperm (IVF or ICSI): US $3,300

Included:
Donor medication for ovarian stimulation and egg production
Monitoring and procedures involved in management of both egg donor and recipient
Sperm freezing, if required
Medical and Institutional fees

Not included:
Medication for the IVF patient and the Egg Donor recipient
Surgeries prior to IVF treatment
Embryo cryopreservation

Sperm Retrieval Techniques:
TESE (Testicular Sperm Extraction)
TESA (Testicular Sperm Aspiration)
PESA (Percutaneous Epididymal Sperm Aspiration)
US $1,200
*sperm freezing for future attempts is included

Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD):
US $2,200

Source: http://www.fertilityfriend.com/Circles/viewtopic.php?t=1602041

Life Begins...
Miscarriage stories of loss, hope & help
http://born2luv.blogspot.com/

Stories of Pregnancy & Birth over 44y
- Daily blog of hope & inspiration!
http://pregnancyover44y.blogspot.com/

4,750 Stories of Pregnancy & Birth over 44y
Daily blog of hope & inspiration!
http://pregnancyover44y.blogspot.com/

Recent Keyword Searches: premenopause bloating and ovulation, saliva ovulation test results if pregnant, can a woman get pregnant over 62, older mothers at 40, can you have a baby when in menopause

New Embryo Stem Cell Technique Does “No Harm”?

On January 11th, The Washington Post ran an article about a new method of harvesting stem cells from embryos. Researchers at Advanced Cell Technologies (ACT) in Massachusetts claimed that their technique of removing only one stem cell from an eight-celled embryo should qualify them for federal funds.

The technique used by researchers is the same used by infertility clinics when conducting genetic testing on embryos. An ACT spokesman argued that many embryos biopsied in clinics are then used to achieve full-term pregnancies and this is evidence that the technique used by the researchers follows federal policy of doing “no harm.” Studies have not been done on the survival rate of embryos biopsied by infertility clinics. However, one study that was cited was published in July – it showed that parents who have had embryos biopsied before implantation have a 30 percent lower chance of giving birth. One source noted that studies that have been done have had flaws.

In addition to using infertility clinic success rates as evidence that the technique does “no harm,” researchers allowed the surviving embryos to continue to grow for five days. Eighty-four percent survived.

The technique has drawbacks for researchers. Kathy Hudson, director of the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University commented to the Post, “Embryo biopsy is tricky and requires extraordinarily good hands and technical skills. And even in the best hands, embryos are sometimes lost.”

Surviving embryos were frozen following experiments.

Source: http://www.bloggernews.net/113126

Life Begins...
Miscarriage stories of loss, hope & help
http://born2luv.blogspot.com/

Stories of Pregnancy & Birth over 44y
- Daily blog of hope & inspiration!
http://pregnancyover44y.blogspot.com/

4,300 Stories of Pregnancy & Birth over 44y
Daily blog of hope & inspiration!
http://pregnancyover44y.blogspot.com/

Recent Keyword Searches: can you get pregnant at 39, can i still get pregnant at 45 with one ovary, chances of pregnacy during perimenopause, natural conception at 45, trying to get pregnant over 40, can a woman get pregnant at 45 using hrt, too old to get pregnant, how easy is it to get pregnant at 40, what age is it hard to get pregnant, can someone 38 still get pregnant?

£2,000 test may harm pregnancy chances

Fertility clinics should stop recommending a £2,000 embryo quality test because there is no evidence that it works and it could damage patients’ chances of pregnancy, an influential group of medical professionals says.

The British Fertility Society (BFS) is to advise its members not to offer the pre-implantation genetic screening (PGS) test, which is approved for women who are over 35 or who have a history of IVF failure and miscarriage, The Times has learnt.

The procedure is designed to choose embryos with the best chance of developing normally, by screening for genetic abnormalities. Eight British clinics are licensed to perform preimplantation genetic screening. It costs typically about £2,000, and is not available on the NHS. A review by the British Fertility Society of published research, however, has found no evidence that it improves pregnancy rates and some indications that it might actually harm infertile couples’ chances of having a baby.

The society, which represents 800 doctors, nurses and counsellors involved in reproductive medicine, will say that the test should ideally be offered in a research setting. Its new policy, which has been seen by The Times, will also insist that any patients who want PGS should be warned that there is no evidence that it is helpful.

Richard Anderson, Professor of Clinical Reproductive Science at the University of Edinburgh, who led the review, said that although PGS was still being refined and might one day be useful the existing research was too flimsy to justify selling it to patients.

“There is a conflict between the published evidence from properly defined clinical studies and the opinions of people who consider themselves experts in this,” he said. “This is one of those issues where medicine and money clash, and I do not think they make happy bedfellows.”

The new policy will say: “It is clear that there is currently no compelling evidence that PGS improves the clinical pregnancy rate or live birthrate or reduces the miscarriage rate. It remains possible that PGS may be of benefit under certain circumstances, for example where the number of embryos replaced is strictly limited. Therefore, PGS should preferably be offered within the context of robustly designed randomised trials performed in experienced centres.”

An earlier draft had recommended that PGS be offered only as part of a clinical trial, but Professor Anderson said the BFS had reluctantly agreed to water down this conclusion after comments from the test’s practitioners.The document will say: “Patients should be informed that there is no robust evidence that PGS for advanced maternal age improves live birthrate. Indeed from the evidence available the live birthrate may be significantly reduced following PGS.” It will also call for further research.

Alan Thornhill, scientific director of the Bridge Centre in London, said that PGS could be beneficial for certain patients. His clinic offers it to about 5 per cent of women, who are known to be at high risk of the chromosomal abormalities it detects.

“The key is patient selection,” he said. “It is not helpful across the board, but that is not how it is done and there are clearly patients who can benefit from undertaking PGS. To decree that it should happen in randomised clinical trials is all very well, but there are very specific individual patients who can be helped outside that setting.”

PGS has been licensed in Britain since 2002 for women who have had repeated miscarriages or multiple failed attempts at IVF. In 2005, the last year for which figures are available, 205 cycles were conducted on 166 women, with 42 live births.

It aims to detect a chromosomal disorder called aneuploidy, which affects up to two thirds of embryos and causes them to die or miscarry. However, it has been tested in only two randomised prospective studies, neither of which showed a benefit.

The most recent study, from the University of Amsterdam, found that PGS actually reduced birthrates. Its methodology, however, has been heavily criticised by PGS experts.

Full article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3080618.ece

Stories of Pregnancy & Birth over 44y

- Daily blog of hope & inspiration!

http://pregnancyover44y.blogspot.com/

4,200 Stories of Pregnancy & Birth over 44y

All the stories, divided by age, 1st pregnancy & high FSH!

http://pregnancystories.blogspot.com/

"In 2005, there were more than 104,000 births in the United States to women ages 40 through 44, and over 6,500 to women 45 and older. In 2004, there were 1,786 live births to women over 42, using donor eggs."

In Vitro Fertilization with Preimplantation Genetic Screening

Abstract:

Background: Pregnancy rates in women of advanced maternal age undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) are disappointingly low. It has been suggested that the use of preimplantation genetic screening of cleavage-stage embryos for aneuploidies may improve the effectiveness of IVF in these women.

Methods: We conducted a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial comparing three cycles of IVF with and without preimplantation genetic screening in women 35 through 41 years of age. The primary outcome measure was ongoing pregnancy at 12 weeks of gestation. The secondary outcome measures were biochemical pregnancy, clinical pregnancy, miscarriage, and live birth.

Results: Four hundred eight women (206 assigned to preimplantation genetic screening and 202 assigned to the control group) underwent 836 cycles of IVF (434 cycles with and 402 cycles without preimplantation genetic screening). The ongoing-pregnancy rate was significantly lower in the women assigned to preimplantation genetic screening (52 of 206 women [25%]) than in those not assigned to preimplantation genetic screening (74 of 202 women [37%]; rate ratio, 0.69; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.51 to 0.93). The women assigned to preimplantation genetic screening also had a significantly lower live-birth rate (49 of 206 women [24%] vs. 71 of 202 women [35%]; rate ratio, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.50 to 0.92).

Conclusions: Preimplantation genetic screening did not increase but instead significantly reduced the rates of ongoing pregnancies and live births after IVF in women of advanced maternal age. (Current Controlled Trials number, ISRCTN76355836 [controlled-trials.com] .)

Full Article: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMoa067744v1

Changes In Chromosomal Constitution Of Preimplantation Embryos Suggest Caution In Genetic Screening

Embryos that are selected out as abnormal can undergo chromosomal modifications, a scientist has told the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics. Ms Tsvia Frumkin, from the Racine IVF unit, LIS Maternity Hospital, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Centre, Tel Aviv, Israel, will tell the conference that her team's findings meant that the results of preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) for chromosomal abnormalities were not always reliable and should be interpreted with caution.

PGS is offered to women with recurrent IVF failures as well as repeated miscarriages. It is based on the concept that the entire chromosomal constitution of an embryo can be represented by a single cell, which is removed from the embryo. If one biopsied cell is found to be abnormal, there is a 90% chance that the rest of the embryo is also abnormal or mosaic, where two or more cells with different chromosomal constitution exist in a single embryo.

Ms Frumkin analysed 8 cell embryos at day 3 of development using the FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization) technique. Two cells from each embryo were analysed, and between 5 and 9 chromosomes were investigated. The abnormal embryos were re-analysed on day 5, using the same method. "By comparing FISH results of day 5 embryos to the abnormal results of the same embryos on day 3, we could elucidate the origin of the chromosomal aberrations and follow different chromosomal modifications as they occurred during preimplantation period. The timing is significant because embryos used in IVF are normally transferred at between 3 and 5 days old", says Ms Frumkin.

"We found that embryos which were abnormal on day 3 demonstrated a high rate of mosaicism However, on day 5 some of them had undergone 'self-correction' into normal embryos. Others kept the same abnormalities, while some had acquired additional chromosomal abnormalities", she says.

Following the research, Ms Frumkin's hospital has decided to offer PGS only to patients after they have undergone more than 6 previous failed IVF cycles, been checked for and found to have normal chromosomal make-up, and produced more than 6 good quality embryos. "Even in cases that fulfil these conditions, we nevertheless prefer transferring more embryos back to the uterus rather than carrying out PGS biopsies for them on day 3, assuming that natural selection will usually favour the normal embryos for implantation," she says.

"Our results can explain why PGS would not be able to increase pregnancy potential but rather can serve as a prognostic tool in a limited number of cases", says Ms Frumkin. "It can also help us make optimal decisions about the value of switching to a different assisted reproduction technique, for example egg donation."

From: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=74600&nfid=crss

British fertility clinic granted license to begin screening embryos for cosmetic defects

A family clinic in London is set for the first time to screen embryos for a cosmetic defect. The Bridge Centre Family Clinic has been licensed by the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to create a baby free from a genetic disorder which would have caused the baby to have a severe squint. The clinic's client is a businessman who, along with his father, suffers from the condition, and he does not want to pass the defect on to his child. This may not seem like such a big deal, but critics say it is a landmark shift from HFEA's former policy of granting licenses for doctors only to screen for life-threatening problems, not simply those that might affect the quality of a child's life. They also say this is the first step towards using advances in genetics and embryology to creating "perfect-looking" babies in a laboratory.

Prof Gedis Grudzinskas of HFEA also does believe this is a major shift, and says this procedure will still be used primarily to prevent major defects that would cause a family major distress: "We will increasingly see the use of embryo screening for severe cosmetic conditions," he said. While he uses modifiers like "major" and "severe," Grudzinskas also said he might consider licensing such a screening for problems as minor and as common as asthma or ginger hair color.

Critic David King, the director of Human Genetics Alert, responded to this decision by saying: "Philosophers love to deride the idea of a slippery slope, but here it is in practice. We moved from preventing children who will die young to those who might become ill in middle age. We now discard those who will live as long as the rest of us but are cosmetically imperfect." It's a brave new world.

Source: http://www.parentdish.com/2007/05/08/british-clinic-to-begin-screening-embryos-for-cosmetic-defects/

Los Angeles Times Examines Whether PGD Improves IVF Outcomes

The Los Angeles Times on Monday examined whether preimplantation genetic diagnosis -- a procedure that allows physicians to identify embryos without genetic defects or chromosomal abnormalities and then transfer the embryos most likely to result in a live, healthy infant -- improves pregnancy outcomes for women undergoing vitro fertilization. According to the Times, use of PGD has "risen exponentially" since it became available in 1990.

Although the procedure is not formally tracked, a report from the Genetics & Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University found that in 2005 about 3,000 PGD procedures were performed in the U.S., and experts estimate that the frequency of PGD is increasing by 15% to 30% annually. Most fertility experts agree that the procedure is "valuable" to use to prevent transmission of "serious inherited disorders," but many experts say there is a lack of evidence that it improves IVF success rates for older women.

According to the Times, a Belgian study published in 2004 in the journal Human Reproduction found no improvement in full-term pregnancy rates among 150 women ages 37 and older who underwent PGD, compared with a similar number of women who did not undergo the procedure.

A study presented by Richard Scott, founder and managing partner of Reproductive Medicine Associates, at the annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in October 2006 reported that pregnancy rates were the same for embryos that had undergone PGD and those that had not.

According to the Times, PGD, which adds about $3,000 to the cost of IVF, cannot increase the number of viable embryos transferred during a procedure, and many physicians are hesitant to transfer embryos diagnosed as abnormal during PGD. Some fertility experts are unsure whether conducting PGD could later cause harm to the embryo, but there is not much evidence to support the concern, the Times reports.

Many experts say that the procedure primarily "makes sense" for women who have had multiple miscarriages while undergoing IVF, according to the Times. According to recent surveys, about two-thirds of PGD procedures are being performed to determine whether embryos created by couples with fertility problems have abnormal chromosome counts (Goldman, Los Angeles Times, 4/23).

Reprinted with permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org .