Tuesday, April 24, 2012

The Mini IVF which is a low intensity IVF (LI – IVF)  is when couples are subjected to taking oral fertility medications with or without minimal use of injectibles when going through InVitro Fertilization. This process is the same in operation as the conventional ivf which entails egg retrival, fertilization,embryo culture and transfer. This process is one that can helps in reducing the risk of multiple birth.

The difference between this treatment and the conventional ivf is that this procedure is offered at a lower cost compared to other conventional ivf plus the amount of medication used to stimulate the ovaries to produce egg. While the typical IVF aim to produce several eggs for retrieval, the mini IVF uses only lower medications to produce few eggs

However with the said low cost that this treatment brings, there are doubts as to the effective of this treatment. A study by the New York Study for Human Reproduction (CHR) cast aspersion on the efficacy of low intensity IVF programs marketed under different names like Mini IVF. According to the study, this low intensity IVF programs do not live up to their claims compared to conventional IVF programs even when doses of fertility medications are reduced in order to lower cost of treatment.

A research was also conducted by CHR to evaluate claims that the mini IVF program is cheaper and more patient friendly compared to the traditional IVF programs. The result was published online in the medical journals Reproductive Biomedicine Online 1, the result states that micro IVF produces fewer embryo and faces much lower pregnancy rate.

However when the overall cost to getting pregnant through mini IVF is compared the economical aspect of the treatment becomes meaningless because micro IVF patients needed more cycles before they can actually get pregnant. This means that the lower treatment associated with minimal stimulation IVF did not translate to lower cost to achieve a successful conception.

According to CHR “LI-IVF appears to reduce pregnancy chances and prolong time to conception without offering any appreciable compensatory financial benefits,”

Also Norbert Gleicher, MD, the study’s lead author and medical director of CHR said,
“When patients started asking for LI-IVF at our center, we, like many other IVF centers, decided to offer the procedure. In contrast to other centers, we, however, explained to our patients that LI-IVF should still be considered ‘experimental’ since no data existed, that compared this method of IVF to standard IVF.”

Before the treatment is considered, CHR will require the patient to sign the “experimental” informed consent and started the accumulation outcome data. Dr. Gleicher also note “As the result of our study well demonstrates, doing otherwise would have been rather unethical.”

“We must warn patients against using ‘mini IVF’ or ‘natural IVF’ without carefully studing the options,” warns David Barad, MD, another author of the study and director of clinical ART at CHR. “Until more data becomes available, physicians should offer LI-IVF only as an experimental procedure.”

The bottom line to Mini IVF is that although it may save money [if you are successful with the first cycle] and lower the risk of getting pregnant with multiple embryo transfer, but its not for everyone and success rates is yet to be ascertain.

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