Study points way to safer fertility help

MADRID - Transferring one embryo, instead of two, during fertility treatments does not reduce success rates and cuts the likelihood of multiple births, research shows.

The Australian research, presented at a European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in Madrid, showed the cumulative birth rate was the same regardless of whether one or two embryos had been transferred during the initial treatment.

But there were fewer multiple births, which can be dangerous for mother and child, when only one embryo was used.

"This is the first time that a study of cumulative pregnancy and live birth rates with five-day-old single embryo transfer has been conducted," Dr Jim Catt, the embryology director of Sydney IVF, told the meeting.

"Under the conditions of this study, twin pregnancies can be reduced drastically without compromising a patient's chance of a successful pregnancy."

Catt, who studied 382 patients, said women under 38 who had had two embryos transferred in one cycle of treatment had a live birth rate of 50 per cent, compared with 36 per cent in women who used one embryo.

But in women who did not succeed the first time and had a frozen embryo transferred during a second attempt, the cumulative birth rate for both groups was 60 per cent.

There were three sets of twins among the 107 women who chose to have only one embryo placed in the womb, compared with 90 sets of twins in the women in the two-embryo group. Four cases in the second group ended in miscarriages.

The live birth rate per embryo transfer was 36 per cent for single embryo transfer and 35 per cent for dual embryo.

- REUTERS