Australia IVF - In Vitro Fertilisation - Infertility Treatments Information

Australia Medicare funding for IVF services will be expanded to cover an advanced technique for injecting sperm cells into human eggs, which is a step likely to help thousands more infertile couples have a baby.

The technique, is called intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) , is used when a man’s sperm is unable to fertilise his partner’s egg naturally. The treatment costs from $500 to $800, a fee couples have so far had to pay from their own pockets. Releasing its response yesterday to an expert panel review of IVF, the federal Government said the procedure would be covered in a planned readjustment of IVF items under Medicare.

The Government confirmed it would not restrict funding for In vitro Vertilisation services, either by limiting the number of cycles per year or by denying Medicare subsidies to women in their 40s, when success rates are lower.

Both steps had been flagged by Health Minister Tony Abbott last year, before a furore among the Coalition’s ranks forced a backdown and prompted the Government to refer the matter to the review committee. Read the rest of this entry »

The research team from Melbourne, Monash University have used sophisticated genetic amplification techniques to identify which test tube embryos are most likely to be successfully implanted to produce a healthy baby.

Right now, it is impossible to find out which embryos are likely to develop into successful pregnancies and because of this most couples decide to have more than one embryo implanted in order to increase the chances of a pregnancy. This can result in multiple pregnancy that can be dangerous to both the mother and the babies.

Dr. Gayle Jones, co-author and senior research scientist at the Monash Immunology and Stem Cell Laboratories, says currently embryos are chosen on the basis of appearance, shape and regularity.

Dr. Gayle Jones says by increasing the predictive value by just 20% , far more people will be encouraged to accept a single embryo transfer.

For the research the team took DNA finger prints by removing 8 to 20 cells from a cell layer of the embryos known as the trophectoderm, five days after they were fertilised.

They were taken from 48 women in Greece undergoing in vitro fertilisation , at this stage the embryo is known as a blastocyst which is when they are implanted in the women’s womb. All the women in the study had at least one of their blastocysts transferred to their womb.

Of the group, 25 eventually became pregnant and 37 babies were born and the scientists compared the DNA fingerprints with blood taken from the umbilical cord or swabs of cheek cells of the babies that were born.

It was revealed that they all contained genes that were involved in cell adhesion, cell communication, cellular metabolic processes and response to stimuli.

Dr. Jones says it could be possible to narrow the gene set down to between 5 and 10 which will give a much better prediction of an embryo’s viability and ability to develop to a full term pregnancy.

The researchers say to be able to select the single most viable embryo available for transfer will revolutionise the practice of IVF, and could end the need to transfer more than one embryo into a woman’s womb to ensure success.

This will not only improve pregnancy rates but will eliminate multiple pregnancies and the complications it could bring. Experts say the best rule for all practitioners is one embryo, one baby.

This study appears in the journal Human Reproduction.

“Women undertaking In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) treatment are more likely to give birth to a boy.A study by IVF Australia embryologist Jean Scott found that embryos conceived using the IVF technique and grown for a longer period of time had a higher chance of being male.”

The report published in Sydney Morning Herald is presented to the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Prague last week. The findings indicate that doctors choose to use those embryos which are dividing fastest and that these embryos tend to be male. There is a 56% percent chance of a male baby if an embryo is conceived using IVF and grown to blastocyst (8 cell - 5 day) stage. 

ICSI is the injection of a single sperm directly into the egg using a specially prepared needle. It is recommended for severe cases of male infertility and where there has been no fertilisation following IVF previously. 

With ICSI (Intra Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection), very few sperm are required and the ability of the sperm to penetrate the egg is no longer important as this penetration is bypassed by the ICSI technique. It is important to remember that whilst ICSI is a technique used in the laboratory to help fertilisation occur, it does not guarantee it. Couples go through the same preparatory processes as with IVF, namely ovulation induction and egg collection.

ICSI can only be carried out on a mature egg. Unfortunately egg maturity can only be truly identified under the microscope and it is, therefore, possible that following egg collection, none of the eggs are suitable for ICSI. This situation is fortunately rare.

A small percentage of eggs (fewer than 1 in 10) will be damaged by the injection process and the damage is evident at the time of the injection procedure. These eggs can no longer be used. Of the remaining eggs, however, on average 6 out of 10 are fertilised following the ICSI procedure. The fertilised embryos are allowed to develop as for standard IVF treatment prior to embryo transfer.

One of the Treatment Options for infertility is by using  Ovulation inducing and cycle monitoring. If a woman has an irregular menstrual cycle, monitoring with ultrasound scans and hormone assessments may help to identify the fertile time of the month and so improve the chances of natural conception. If ovulation is not occurring, then drugs may be administered after the onset of menstruation to stimulate egg production. The simplest treatment is with tablets (Clomiphene and Tamoxifen) given within the first few days of the cycle. The response is monitored by ultrasound scans. These are not always effective and more powerful fertility injections may be necessary to stimulate egg production in the ovaries. With these more potent drugs there is a greater risk of increased egg production and, therefore, the risks of multiple pregnancy are greater. Women receiving fertility injections are monitored by ultrasound scans and hormone assessment.

According to UNSW researchers, In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is three to four times less cost-effective in women aged 40 years and over.

The paper, which is the first comprehensive costing study on the topic in Australia, has just been published in the electronic version of the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA).

“Debate on IVF funding has been hindered by a lack of economic studies of IVF treatments and outcomes in Australia,” said the lead author, Ms Georgina Chambers, researcher in the School of Women’s and Children’s Health.

The report, which is co-authored by Dr Tessa Ho, from the School of Public Health and Community Medicine and Dr Elizabeth Sullivan from the School of Women’s and Children’s Health, shows that the direct health care cost of non-donor IVF is $32 903 on average for each live birth. This cost rises to $182 794 for women aged 42 years and over.

The research found average costs in Australia for each IVF cycle using fresh or frozen embryos are similar to estimates from the UK and Europe, but are much less than US estimates.

“However age is not the only determinant of treatment success - other factors such as the duration of infertility are important. In making policy decisions, we need to consider community values, ethical practice and clinical factors, as well as economic costs,” said the authors.

UNSW researchers have announced promising developments in IVF. According to a report commissioned  by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), the number of babies born using Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) has almost tripled in the past ten years, with the total number of babies born increasing by 8.6 percent between 2002 and 2003, .

The report, Assisted Reproduction Technology in Australia and New Zealand 2003, conducted by the Perinatal Statistics Unit (NPSU) at UNSW, also shows the proportion of multiple pregnancies has decreased leading to fewer babies being born prematurely or with a low birth weight.

The report finds better outcomes due to a number of factors including the use of fresh embryos and women embarking on ART at a younger age.

Almost one in four (23.7 percent) of embryo transfer cycles where women used their own fresh embryos resulted in the successful delivery of at least one live baby, while the figure for women who used their own frozen embryo was 15.2 percent.

“When we look at the ages of women who used their own fresh embryos, women aged 25-29 years achieved more successful outcomes, with 35.1 percent of embryo transfer cycles achieving live delivery, while women aged 40-44 years had a success rate of 9.5 percent,” said Professor Michael Chapman, head of the School of Women’s and Children’s Health.

The average age of women undergoing ART treatment in 2003 was 35.2 years.

We just launch a new Forum for Australia IVF Discussion and other infertility treatments. This new IVF Message Boards currently based on these topics:
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If you have any enquiry or want to ask opinion from other user , this IVF message  board is the best media to use. And If you have any other topics you want to suggest to be added in this Forum, please post it in this page as well.

The normal values for semen test result:

Volume: >2.0ml
Concentration: >20 million/ml
Total Cells: >40 million
Motility: ~50%
Normal Forms: >14%
 
If one or more parameters of the test for semen results is not within the normal value, it is recommended to repeat the test several weeks later. Sperm is continually produced in the testes. Its production is affected by health such as fever, nutrition, stress level and other factors, and it takes about 2  months until the sperm matures. For this reason, a single poor sperm test may not be a true indication of the man’s fertility.

Additional factors that may appear on your sperm tests include:
-Semen Viscosity - Coagulated sperm should liquefy within an hour. If it does not, sometimes IUI will solve the problem.
-White & red blood cell counts - If these are abnormally high, antibiotics may be recommended.
-Sperm Agglutination - Sperm that clump together. This may be a sign of anti sperm anti bodies - when your own body mistakes your sperm as an external organism. Sperm agglutination can also be caused by infection.

What is Ovidrel used for?

Ovidrel belongs to a family of hormones known as gonadotrophins, which are involved in the normal control of reproduction.

the active substance of ovidrel is choriogonadotropin alfa that is produced in mammalian cells modified by recombinant DNA technology.

Ovidrel is used in women undergoing assisted reproductive techniques such as IVF ( In vitro Fertilisation). Ovidrel is used to ripen (mature) follicles that contain eggs. Ovidrel is also used in women who do not produce eggs, or who produce too few eggs. It is used to trigger the release of eggs, after other medicines have been used to develop the follicles.