Retrieving eggs earlier during IVF may improve success rates for older women
2015-08-12
(Press-News.org) IVF success rates for women aged 43 and above could improve by retrieving eggs from their ovaries at an earlier stage of fertility treatment, according to a new study published today in the Journal of Endocrinology.
US-based researchers found that the function of cells which nurse and support the development of eggs declines rapidly after 43, causing the egg to be bombarded by hormones that are normally only released after ovulation. Retrieving eggs from smaller follicles at an earlier stage in the IVF process was found to minimise this risk, resulting in a higher quality number of embryos and better clinical pregnancy rates.
The study sheds light on why chances of conceiving through IVF decline with age, with recent studies showing success rates fall from 23.6% in women aged 38-39 to just 1.3% for those aged 44 and over.
In this study, researchers from The Centre for Human Reproduction in New York set out to investigate why success rates fall sharply for women in their early 40s. They compared the reproductive tissue of young egg donors (21-29 years old), middle-aged donors (30-37) and older infertile patients (43-47).
They found that granulosa cells, which envelop and support the eggs inside the ovary to help them grow, were significantly less likely to grow and multiply in older women compared to the other two groups. This was because older women's granulosa cells produced less cell receptors for follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and more cell receptors for luteinising hormone (LH) and progesterone.
These changes to hormone sensitivity show that granulosa cells of older women are at much greater risk of triggering luteinisation prematurely - stopping the ovaries from maturing more eggs and preparing the uterus for pregnancy. This phenomenon usually only occurs after ovulation, where rising levels of LH cause FSH levels to fall and progesterone levels to rise, However, if triggered before the egg has even left the ovary, this 'false start' significantly reduces the likelihood of falling pregnant, though why this happens exactly is poorly understood.
In conventional IVF, doctors wait till egg follicles reach a certain size before injecting patients with the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), which 'ripens' the egg ready for harvesting. In this study researchers tried administering hCG earlier than usual, when the follicle size was 16mm instead of the usual 19-21mm but less likely to have been affected by premature luteinisation.
They found that while the eggs were harvested were more immature, they went on to produce a higher number of good quality embryos and IVF success rates were higher compared to women undergoing regular treatment.
"We used to think that aging eggs were responsible for poor IVF success rates in older women, but here we show that it is more due to the aging of the egg's environment", said Dr Yanguang Wu, Embyrologist and Associate Scientist at the Centre for Reproductive Medicine. "The chances of reversing damage to an egg are practically zero and so these findings are exciting because it's much more hopeful to therapeutically target the egg's supporting environment", he continued.
"While larger studies with more patients are needed to confirm our results, we have a new insight into ovarian ageing and we hope this will help produce new strategies for improving pregnancy outcomes in older women".
INFORMATION:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2015-08-12
August 12, 2015--(BRONX, NY)--Using real-time, high-resolution imaging, scientists have identified how a "doorway" in the blood vessel wall allows cancer cells to spread from breast tumors to other parts of the body. The findings lend support to emerging tests that better predict whether breast cancer will spread, which could spare women from invasive and unnecessary treatments, and could lead to new anti-cancer therapies. The research, conducted by investigators at the NCI-designated Albert Einstein Cancer Center (AECC) and Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care, utilized ...
2015-08-12
CLEVELAND, Ohio (August 12, 2015)--Local vaginal estrogen (VE) appears to have escaped the shroud of doubt cast upon hormone therapy as a result of the Women's Health Initiative Study (WHI) by providing numerous medical benefits without systemic effects. That's according to a new study reported online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).
The study demonstrated that postmenopausal women who suffer from painful intercourse and vaginal dryness are more likely to use VE, regardless of whether they use any other type of hormone therapy. ...
2015-08-11
Cost of radiation therapy among Medicare patients varied most widely because of factors unrelated to a patient or that person's cancer, report University of California, San Diego School of Medicine researchers in the Journal of Oncology Practice.
Year of diagnosis, location of treatment, clinic type and individual radiation provider accounted for 44 to 61 percent of the variation in cost for patients with breast, lung and prostate cancer therapies, according to the study published August 11 online. Factors associated with the patient or patient's tumor accounted for less ...
2015-08-11
Birds of a feather may flock together, but that doesn't mean they share a genetic background. Though birds were first classified into groups primarily based on appearance, research forthcoming in The Auk: Ornithological Advances by Brett Benz of the American Museum of Natural History, Mark Robbins of the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute, and Kevin Zimmer of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History demonstrates that this method isn't necessarily accurate: in a group of very similar-looking South American woodpecker species, genetic analysis has now shown ...
2015-08-11
The immune system not only responds to infections and other potentially problematic abnormalities in the body, it also contains a built-in brake in the form of regulatory T cells, or Tregs. Tregs ensure that inflammatory responses don't get out of hand and do damage. In autoimmune diseases, sometimes these Treg cells don't act as they should.
A new study led by Songtao Shi of the University of Pennsylvania has demonstrated how Tregs can themselves be regulated, by an unexpected source: hydrogen sulfide, a gas produced by the body's muscle cells and one often associated ...
2015-08-11
MADISON, Wis. -- Graphene, an atom-thick material with extraordinary properties, is a promising candidate for the next generation of dramatically faster, more energy-efficient electronics. However, scientists have struggled to fabricate the material into ultra-narrow strips, called nanoribbons, that could enable the use of graphene in high-performance semiconductor electronics.
Now, University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers have discovered a way to grow graphene nanoribbons with desirable semiconducting properties directly on a conventional germanium semiconductor wafer. ...
2015-08-11
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- In findings never before seen in melanoma, a novel combination therapy was found to be highly effective at treating patients with skin metastases, new research from UC Davis has shown.
Led by Emanual Maverakis of the UC Davis Department of Dermatology, the research found that Interleukin (IL)-2 combined with imiquimod and topical retinoid therapy in patients with so-called "in-transit metastases" is a promising therapeutic option.
The findings have been published online first in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology (doi:10.1016/j.jaad.2015.06.060).
"It's ...
2015-08-11
People infected with the hepatitis C virus are at risk for liver damage, but the results of a new Johns Hopkins study now show the infection may also spell heart trouble.
The findings, described online July 27 in The Journal of Infectious Diseases, emerged from a larger ongoing study of men who have sex with men, many but not all of whom were infected with HIV and followed over time to track risk of infection and disease progression. A subset of the participants had both HIV and hepatitis C, two infections that often occur together.
Even though people infected with ...
2015-08-11
New research from Monash University shows that children are being exposed to thousands of alcohol adverts when watching sport TV, questioning the effectiveness of advertising regulations designed to protect children.
The study, published in the international journal PLOS ONE, found that 87 per cent of all alcohol adverts during the daytime were in sport TV when hundreds of thousands of children were watching. A clause in Australia's advertising regulations allowing alcohol advertising in live sport programming during the day when children are watching appears to be responsible ...
2015-08-11
From its orbit around the Earth, the NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite or Suomi NPP satellite, captured a night-time image of California's Jerusalem Fire.
InciWeb is an interagency all-risk incident information management system that coordinates with federal, state and local agencies to manage wildfires. According to Inciweb, this fire is burning on lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management within the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument. It is being managed by the Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit of the California Department of Forestry ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Retrieving eggs earlier during IVF may improve success rates for older women
