Tag: fail implantation

Intralipid infusion therapy: boosting IVF success rates

Last modified: Dicembre 4, 2021

Intralipid infusion therapy is now used by many IVF specialists as a treatment for boosting IVF success rates, reducing the risk of miscarriage.

Nowadays, in vitro fertilisation (IVF) appears to be the most popular among fertility treatments. That is mainly due to its effectiveness and its relative simplicity as a medical procedure that couples can follow without changing much of their daily routine.

Intralipid infusion therapy

Intralipid infusion therapy is thought to protect the cell membranes

However, there are some couples who do not seem able to achieve pregnancy and deliver a healthy baby even though they have tried IVF several times. There might be several reasons underlying such IVF failures, including the age of the female and/or male partner, inherited genetic diseases, womb structure abnormalities, hormonal irregularities and, as seen quite often these past few years, immune system malfunction.

The latter, is based on the fact that a woman’s uterus might be hostile to receiving embryos transferred during the last step of the IVF treatment. There is evidence indicating that some cells of the immune system called natural killer cells (NK) could attack to the embryos recognizing them as foreign, causing them to fail implantation.

A quite promising therapy, called intralipid infusion therapy, could compromise the natural killer cells activity. In 2011, Dr George Ndukwe of the Care fertility clinic conducted a trial of the therapy on 50 women who have had several IVF failures. Approximately 50% of treated women got pregnant compared to 9% of women who got pregnant without receiving the intralipid infusion therapy. However, according to experts, a larger scale study is needed for confirming these data.

Intralipid infusion therapy is based on a blend of soya oil, egg yolk and glycerine and is thought to protect the cell membranes from the natural cell killers’ attacks. It is usually provided in tandem with IVF or IUI rather than as an alternative. It is a relatively low cost therapy, with no side effects that could increase success rates for women who have experienced implantation failures or early miscarriage/s.

Have you tried intralipid infusion therapy, or consider trying it in tandem with your IVF treatment?

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Time-lapse embryo imaging may increase IVF success

Last modified: Agosto 17, 2016

Time-lapse embryo imaging in IVF labs may increase IVF success rates, according to British research, by selecting embryos with the highest implantation potential.

But what is time-lapsing imaging and what is the innovation of it that outbalances other methods for embryo selection?

Time-lapse embryo imaging

Time-lapse embryo imaging may increase IVF success rates up to 56%

Time-lapse embryo imaging refers to constant recording of embryos developing in the stable environment of an incubator up to the point of embryo transfer.  The embryo is monitored and surveyed in IVF clinics constantly under a temperature – controlled environment without removing it from it.

The innovation of the method lies in time-lapse photography, where a camera is set in the incubator, where the embryos are placed to grow, to record a number of images at regular intervals. With this method IVF specialists can be given the information needed for selecting the best quality embryos in terms of morphology and cell dividing rate for increasing chances of successful implantation. And the key point of the method is that this is possible to happen all the way through the embryos’ development, without them leaving the incubator until they are implanted in contrast to conventional methods; allowing roughly 5,000 embryo images to be taken.

According to the researchers in Reproductive BioMedicine Online journal, from Care fertility group, preliminary data concerning the methods efficiency are quite encouraging. The researchers in this study used the information provided from time-lapse embryo imaging to classify the embryos as high, medium or low chance of aneuploidy (chromosomal abnormalities). Such DNA abnormalities can increase the risk of failed implantation reducing pregnancy chances.

Researchers reported that time-lapse embryo imaging may increase IVF success rates up to 56%. In further detail, they found that from a total of 88 embryos imaged and implanted there was no live birth from the high risk group compared to 5 (19% success rate) and 11 babies (61% success rate) born from the medium and low risk groups respectively.

Some scientists argue that the small number of couples participated in this study is not enough for making the method a routine clinical tool. However, the concept of it along with preliminary data provided definitely make it a strong candidate for replacing previous standard IVF methods for embryo selection, where embryos have to be removed from the incubator once a day to be checked under a microscope, which is likely to negatively affect their healthy development.

Would you ask for time-lapse imaging to increase your

pregnancy chances through IVF?

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