What is new in IVF?

09/03/2023

Earlier today, I had a lovely and engaging discussion with Chris during the Breakfast Show on BBC Radio Norfolk.
It was all about raising awareness around Endometriosis, its impact on fertility and the benefits of early diagnosis.
The message is clear:
• if you have significant period pains, have an open and honest discussion with your doctor and raise your personal concern about perhaps suffering from endometriosis.
• when it comes to making big decisions what to do, seek advice from Endometriosis surgeons and Fertility specialists. Each party will provide you with the necessary knowledge and best options, so that you can make an informed decision moving forward.

02/07/2020

My commentary on Bionews on how to deliver safe IVF in the era of COVID-19.

How to safely deliver fertility treatments in the COVID-19 era: the controversy of guidelines 29 June 2020 By Dr Thanos Papathanasiou Medical Director, Bourn Hall Fertility Clinic, UK Appeared in BioNews 1053 The Health Secretary's announcement on 1 May 2020 that fertility services in the UK could a...

16/09/2018

More eggs make more babies.

But what does this really mean?

There is accumulating evidence that the more eggs are harvested during IVF, the more babies are born from this particular harvest.

It is therefore tempting to assume that stimulating the ovaries harder with higher doses of hormones may make IVF more successful. However, this is not strictly true.

Actually what the research indicates is that women whose ovaries produce more eggs - after reasonable hormonal stimulation - are expected to make more babies out of those eggs. So, the wealthier the ovaries the better.

Actually, one cannot exclude the possibility that pushing the ovaries too hard may have an undesirable effect on egg quality and overall performance. Individual reports have supported this scenario.

On the other side of the spectrum, understimulating the ovaries may not take advantage of the full potential of a wealthy o***y - although this is not conclusively proven.

So, how should we go about ovarian stimulation in order to achieve the optimal cumulative live birth?

The way forward is likely by prescribing average strength stimulation and, thereby, allowing the ovaries to produce as many eggs as they can during that cycle.

Dr Thanos Papathanasiou

01/01/2017

Is IVF a powerful fertility treatment?

Indeed, it is.

One needs only consider that the chances of achieving pregnancy naturally in a single month of trying is no more than 20%.

On the other hand, a single fresh IVF cycle may achieve pregnancy in about 35-45% of cases. The cumulative success may be even higher if embryos stored from a initial harvest are subsequently used.

IVF achieves such high success through use of superovulation. That means the recruitment of more than one egg in a given month. This allows production of several embryos and affords the selection of the best material among those embryos.

For this reason, it is almost certain that IVF will only become more popular with time.

11/10/2016

Coming soon