Skipping one phase when treating infertility also cuts costs, study finds
FRIDAY, June 19 (HealthDay News) — Among couples going to fertility clinics, pregnancy occurred more quickly — and for less money — when they took an accelerated route to in vitro fertilization, a new study has found.
The advantages came when the researchers eliminated one step in the fertility treatment — the gonadotropin-stimulated intrauterine insemination cycle. Gonadotropin is a follicle-stimulating hormone.
Working with couples at Boston IVF and Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, the researchers divided 503 couples into two groups. Women in one group underwent conventional treatment — three cycles of intrauterine insemination (IUI) using clomiphene citrate to stimulate ovulation, followed by three gonadotropin-stimulated IUI cycles, then up to six cycles of in vitro fertilization (IVF).
IUI is a procedure in which a thin, flexible catheter is threaded through the cervix and used to inject washed sperm directly into the uterus. In IVF, egg and sperm are joined outside the uterus in a petri dish, and the fertilized egg is then placed into the uterus.
Tags : infertility, IUI, ivf
