Patients Being Given Inappropriate Fertility Treatment, According To Infertility Network UK

Main Category: Fertility
Article Date: 10 Jul 2008 - 2:00 PDT

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Infertility Network UK (I N UK), as the national charity in the UK providing help, information and support to those affected by infertility was concerned today to hear that Professor Anders Nyboe Andersen, chairman of Eshre's European IVF Monitoring Consortium has voiced his concerns that in some cases, patients are being steered toward more complex and expensive treatments than they require.

Intra Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI), which involves injecting a sperm cell directly into an egg, was introduced in 1992 to treat men who had a very low sperm count, where the sperm was not active.

It is not only more complex than IVF and carries a greater risk of passing male genetic defects on to any child born after this treatment, but is far more expensive.

Clare Brown, Chief Executive of I N UK stated "Patients should be fully informed about their diagnosis and the treatments appropriate to that diagnosis. It is worrying that Professor Anders states that more than half of all ICSI cycles are now done in couples without a diagnosis of severe male factor infertility. More worrying still is the thought that patients may be having ICSI when trials have shown that it does not produce more pregnancies compared with standard IVF for problems other than severe male infertility."

Infertility Network UK
Charter House
43 St. Leonards Road
Bexhill on Sea
East Sussex
TN40 1JA

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