Is there 100% guarantee for treating infertility?
Often patients who suffer from infertility expect a “100% guarantee” of a successful pregnancy resulting from treatment. Taking into account emotional and financial resources they put in the treatment, their high expectations are understandable, however infertility treatment is not capable of providing successful live birth to every patient seeking treatment. No program has enough knowledge to overcome all the obstacles to achieving live birth. There many factors that we may not be able to overcome: advanced age, environmental factors (affecting the eggs, the sperm or the uterus), and possibly genetic factors that we do not yet understand. Therefore we cannot provide a 100% guarantee to patients seeking treatment. Every doctor wants treatment to yield live birth after the first attempt, however the desired result often takes longer to be achieved, due to several factors.
What affects the outcomes of In-Vitro Fertilization?
In the first place, it depends on human organism, its physiological features, abilities, health conditions, psychological state and external conditions. Healthy, young women have a 20% chance of pregnancy with each natural menstrual cycle accompanied by unprotected intercourse at the appropriate time (naturally, only one ovum is ovulated). During in-vitro fertilization, for several ova to mature, women’s ovary is subject to medical stimulation. However, it might turn out that even several mature ova cannot lead to a healthy embryo, which can be associated with the woman’s age and specific circumstances.
At the same time, sperm quality plays an important role in pregnancy, which is in turn affected by a man’s lifestyle, his age and sperm DNA. According to the recent studies, among men over the age of 40 the likelihood of pregnancy is less, however risk of miscarriage is high. Simultaneously, in the woman’s eggs a similar kind of genetic disorder that is not compatible with life and might lead to miscarriage. Thus modern medicine is unable to avoid the effects of aging (the above-mentioned factors). However, with the advancement of medicine and introduction of new methods and drugs, it is already possible to achieve limited success for patients with those deceases, which was not possible in the past. Perhaps in the near future we will gain understanding and technology so that we can obtain success for every couple on the first attempt.
What increases the likelihood of successful treatment?
The rate of success has gradually increased over the years. For instance, if in 1979 in-vitro fertilization was followed by pregnancy only in 25% of the cases. Now the success can be as high as 83*% in some groups of young patients. Modern medicine utilizes more knowledge and improved methods for successful pregnancy.
- Within recent decades, medicine, methods and culture media (where embryos are maintained), have developed. Knowledge about air quality and temperature in the laboratory, what is toxic for embryo etc. has improved. At the same time, endometrial assessment research has been introduced, which enables us to exactly define the optimal time for embryo transfer to achieve pregnancy. Doctors are now more aware of the endometrium and embryo assessment. All these improvements have occurred rapidly (by scientific time standards) and have helped to gain these dramatic improvements in success.
- To optimize successful outcomes, it is important to start medical treatment when the woman seeks fertility treatment at an early age when factors hindering pregnancy can be easily diagnosed and treated.
- Sometimes, likelihood of pregnancy is positively affected by the involvement of surrogate mother or a young donor. When pregnancy is dangerous or impossible due to the future mother’s health conditions, surrogate mother can be involved in the process. Donor becomes vital when future mother cannot produce an ovum or when getting embryos from her ova is less likely. In such cases, using ova from a young donor increases the chances of pregnancy up to 70% and when a surrogate mother is also involved in the process, pregnancy success rate has reached 83% at ReproART.
- Genetic testing of embryos can also give a fresh new perspective to those parents who suffer from some kind of genetic disorder and enables them to have an unaffected child. It can provide patients with the opportunity to have a pregnancy with a fetus/child that is not affected by the genetic disorder carried by the parents. However, patients relying on genetic testing for genetic disorders should be aware that selection of embryos without the disorder decreases the number of embryos that are available for the transfer and may require more embryos and/or more IVF cycles than a patient not using this type of genetic selection. All these methods contribute to increasing chances per transfer but none lead to 100%.
All these methods contribute to increasing chances per transfer but non lead to 100%.
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*83% is taken when ovum of a young woman is used and when surrogate mother is also involved in the treatment, see http://reproart.ge/warmatebis-macvenebeli/?lang=en
