Woman gives birth to world's first baby from IVF egg-screening technique

[Al-khiyal]

Woman gives birth to world's first baby from IVF egg-screening technique

September 2, 2009 -- A British woman who became the first in the world to conceive using a pioneering IVF technique has given birth to a healthy baby boy. The 41-year-old woman was treated by doctors in Nottingham after suffering two miscarriages and having 13 courses of IVF, none of which led to a baby. The boy, named Oliver, was born two months ago after doctors screened the woman's eggs for chromosomal abnormalities and identified two that had a good chance of leading to a successful pregnancy. Five other women, all of whom have a history of unsuccessful IVF treatment, are now pregnant after receiving the treatment. Simon Fishel, director of the Care Fertility Group, said the new technique could potentially double pregnancy rates among couples regardless of whether or not they have fertility problems. The technique allows doctors to check a woman's eggs for defective chromosomes, the structures that carry the human genetic code. Having the wrong number of chromosomes can cause an embryo to miscarry, or lead to serious medical conditions such as Down's syndrome. Up to half the eggs of young women and up to 75% of those in women over 39 have abnormal chromosomes. A healthy egg carries 46 chromosomes arranged in 23 pairs, but before it can be fertilised it needs to ditch one of each pair. The unwanted chromosomes are pushed out of the egg into a structure called the polar body. The new technique checks the chromosomes in the polar body.

Doctors at the clinic collected eggs from the woman after stimulating her ovaries with hormones used in standard IVF treatment. Of the eight eggs they screened, six were found to have serious genetic abnormalities. Two healthier-looking eggs were fertilised and implanted into her womb last autumn. "All the team at Care have been waiting for this very special baby to be born," said Professor Fishel. "Oliver's birth is an important landmark in shaping our understanding of why many women fail to become pregnant." The technique, called array comparative genomic hybridisation, is believed to be the first that can screen all of the chromosomes in an egg to see if any are missing or are present as extra copies. The treatment costs £1,950 on top of standard IVF fees. To check an egg for chromosomal abnormalities, doctors use a laser to make a small incision in the outer membrane, which allows them to extract the polar body and the chromosomes it contains. The chromosomes are then checked using a computerised screening procedure. Fishel said that chromosomal abnormalities in eggs account for more than 80% of the genetic defects that can arise in an embryo. The remainder are either caused by abnormalities in the sperm that fertilise the eggs, or occur when the embryo divides and grows. Fishel's clinic has a licence from the government's fertility watchdog, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, to offer chromosome screening to its patients, but because the procedure is experimental there are no plans to make it available on the NHS.

[amalgamate]

screening chromosomes and choosing which egg to fertilize... Subhanallah what the advancements in our technology lead to