Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report Highlights Recently Presented Studies

Main Category: Fertility
Article Date: 27 Jun 2006 - 12:00 PDT

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The results of the following studies were presented this week.

• Sarah Berga, Emory University: Berga and colleagues examined the effects of cognitive behavior therapy on women of normal weight living with amenorrhea -- a failure to menstruate and ovulate -- for more than six months. By measuring levels of cortisol, a hormone that increases during periods of stress, the researchers determined whether the women were experiencing stress. The researchers divided the women into two groups, one of which received cognitive behavior therapy -- consisting of nutrition, exercise and stress-reduction methods -- for 20 weeks, while the other group received no therapy. The researchers on Tuesday announced they found that 80% of women who underwent cognitive behavior therapy resumed ovulation, compared with 25% of those who did not receive cognitive behavior therapy. In addition, two of the women who received cognitive behavior therapy became pregnant after the treatment, according to the study. Although everyday stress can lead to infertility, low-cost therapy can restore fertility, the study finds (Reaney, Reuters, 6/20).
  


• Masashige Kuwayama, Kato Ladies Clinic: Kuwayama and colleagues at the clinic in Tokyo froze 111 eggs and successfully thawed 94.5% of them for in vitro fertilization treatments using a method called Cryotop. The researchers at the 22nd Annual Meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Prague, Czech Republic, announced they had achieved a pregnancy rate of 41.9% for IVF treatments using thawed eggs, compared to the clinic's 42.5% pregnancy rate using recently fertilized never frozen eggs for IVF. According to Reuters, the treatment could allow young women diagnosed with cancer to freeze their eggs before undergoing treatment that might harm their fertility (Reaney, Reuters, 6/19).
  


• Wolfgang Paulus, University of Ulm: Paulus and colleagues compared the pregnancies of 119 women who received the antidepressant paroxetine with 645 women who did not receive the drug (Ryan, BBC News, 6/20). FDA in December 2005 issued a public health advisory warning pregnant women and physicians about an increased risk of fetal heart defects from taking paroxetine -- sold under the brand names Paxil and Seroxat by GlaxoSmithKline -- during the first three months of pregnancy (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 12/9/05). Paulus and colleagues at the ESHRE meeting announced they found that women exposed to the drug had a similar rate of fetal abnormalities when compared with women who were not exposed to the drug (BBC News, 6/20).
  


• Henrietta Svarre Nielsen, University College Hospital Copenhagen: Svarre Nielsen and colleagues examined the records of 305 women who had delivered an infant --184 of whom delivered boys -- and had three subsequent miscarriages, BBC News reports (Ryan, BBC News, 6/19). The women all had visited the Copenhagen Fertility Clinic between 1986 and 2005. The researchers at the ESHRE meeting announced that they found that among women who have multiple miscarriages, women who first have a boy have about one-third the chance of having another infant as women who first deliver a girl (Sample, Guardian, 6/20).
  


• Ann Vincent, Mayo Clinic: Acupuncture has been found to be no better at relieving hot flashes experienced by women during menopause than placebo treatments, according to research presented last month at the North American Research Conference on Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Edmonton, Canada, the Washington Post reports. Vincent, an assistant professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and colleagues examined 103 women ages 45 to 59 who reported having no fewer than five hot flashes daily and were not undergoing therapy for them. Half of the women were given a series of 10 standardized acupuncture treatments, and the other half received placebo treatments. After six weeks, the researchers found that 61% of the women who received placebo therapy experienced hot flashes, while 62% of the women who received real acupuncture experienced hot flashes (Boodman, Washington Post, 6/20).

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