Reported By:
| Edited By: |Source: ANI |Updated: May 11, 2011, 02:48 PM IST
Hoping to make a baby the high-tech way? Then 15 is the magic number.
To boost the chances of a live birth after in-vitro fertilization (IVF), doctors should aim to retrieve around 15 eggs from a woman's ovaries in a single cycle, according to a new study.
It found that there was a strong relationship between live birth rates and the number of eggs retrieved in one cycle.
The live birth rate rose with an increasing number of eggs up to about 15; it leveled off between 15 and 20 eggs, and then steadily declined beyond 20 eggs.
"This is the first study to look at the association between the number of eggs and live births," said Arri Coomarasamy, one of the authors of the study.
Coomarasamy, a Clinical Reader and Consultant in Reproductive Medicine and Surgery at the University of Birmingham (UK), and his colleagues analysed data from the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) on 400,135 IVF cycles that took place anywhere in the UK between April 1991 and June 2008.
The data also showed that during 2006-2007 the predicted live birth rate for women with 15 eggs retrieved was 40% for those aged 18-34, 36% for those aged 35-37, 27%for those aged 38-39 and 16% for women aged 40 and over.
"Our data show that around 15 eggs may be the best number to aim for in an IVF cycle in order to maximize the chances of a live birth while minimizing the risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) which is associated with a high number of eggs, usually over 20," said Coomarasamy.
"Mild stimulation protocols aim to retrieve less than six to eight eggs; a standard stimulation should aim for 10-15 eggs, and we believe this is what is associated with the best IVF outcomes; when the egg number exceeds 20, the risk of OHSS becomes high," he said.
The study was published online in journal Human Reproduction.
