Monday, November 25, 2019

Why did my IVF cycle fail ?



Whenever an IVF cycle fails, patients ask two questions.

Did we overlook something ?
Can we do anything different the next time?

And the unasked question is - Did the doctor mess up?

When an IVF cycle fails, doctors are heartbroken too , just as patients are.

We want our patients to get pregnant as quickly as possible , because every time a patient gets pregnant, she's going to refer more patients to us for IVF treatment.
The trouble is that our IVF technology has limitations , and we're not very good at determining why a cycle fails.

Thus, we can check endometrial receptivity by checking the endometrial thickness and texture on the ultrasound scan, but this is a crude test. Not all endometrial linings which look normal on ultrasound scans are actually going to be receptive.

Sadly, we still don't have enough reliable tests to be able to differentiate between a receptive endometrium and one which is not.

Researchers have developed tools such as the ERA ( endometrial receptivity assay), which many IVF clinics promote aggressively, but these tests are unreliable, and their  signal noise ratio is not good enough to use in clinical practise. Sadly, the rule GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out, still applies. More tests don't improve clinical outcomes or IVF success rates

In real life, what this means that sometimes patients just need to be patient after a failed IVF cycle, and repeat the process until it finally works !

What to find an IVF clinic which respects your time and intelligence ?






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