Fertility Treatment Without Fertility Drugs

Usually, when a woman undergoes IVF treatment, she has to take several cycles of fertility drugs so that her body will produce many mature eggs that can be fertilized and frozen or just frozen for later use.

The problem? Women with cancer who may find their fertility challenged by chemotherapy may not have time to undergo cycles of fertility drugs. Other women fear that exposure to the hormones in fertility drugs will increase their risk of cancer, especially if they have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer. Other families just can’t afford the expensive hormones.

Now, though, a research and treatment clinic at McGill University has combined several treatments that make fertility treatment without fertility drugs and egg freezing a possibility.

Fertility drugs force the woman’s body to produce a number of mature eggs during her cycle. These six to ten eggs are then harvested, fertilized and frozen to be implanted later.

Since about 1999, fertility specialists have been able to harvest immature eggs directly from the ovaries. In 2005 they could fertilize a mature egg that had been frozen in an unfertilized state.

Using ultrasound and other monitoring technologies, the fertilized eggs can then be implanted during the woman’s natural cycle through a process called in vitro maturation or IVM.

The first baby conceived using all three of these techniques together was born in Canada ten months ago.

“My idea is to do this natural cycle and IVM for all women,” Dr. Ri-Cheng Chian, the McGill scientist who pioneered this technique told the Globe and Mail. “The drug companies don’t like me any more … they don’t invite me anywhere.”