Nurses call on government to end IVF lottery

Members of the Royal College of Nursing have voted to call on the government to fund three cycles of IVF for those who need it, and to put an end to the current postcode lottery for treatment.

Delegates at the RCN's annual Congress voted nine to one in favour of the proposal to lobby the government to ensure that local primary care trusts put the guidance they were given four years ago into action.

In 2004, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommended that the primary care trusts should fund three cycles of IVF for those who needed it. At the time it was welcomed by all those in the field, but things have not improved for patients since.

in some areas there is still no funding for IVF at all. In others there is funding for one cycle, but many primary care trusts have invented their own eligibility criteria which means that many couples don't qualify.

It is wonderful news that the Royal College of Nursing have recognised the heartache caused by the current system, which has been branded a 'disgrace'.

The story has been taken up by the Daily Mail, and you can read more about it at www.dailymail.co.uk

The best test to predict menopause

I was particularly interested to come across some new research from the Netherlands after my last post about ovarian reserve tests. A team from the University Medical Centre in Utrecht have concluded that anti-Mullerian hormone, or AMH, is the best way to test a woman's reproductive age.

AMH is a hormone produced by the follicles in the ovary when they are still at their tiniest stage, and the levels of the hormone seem to be the surest way to predict the ovarian reserve (the number of eggs left in the ovaries) and to see how close an individual may be to the menopause. The research team studied 144 healthy, fertile volunteers, and used their AMH levels to predict their reproductive age. They concluded that AMH levels are able to predict this better than your chronological age, as women will not all reach the menopause at the same point in their lives.

The research is due to be published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, and you can read more about it at http://jcem.endojournals.org

Ovarian reserve testing

I've just been reading about the launch of a new "biological clock" test for women, but on closer investigation it turned out to be the American launch of a product we've had here in the UK for a few years now.

PlanAhead is a test of your ovarian reserve, a term used to describe the quality and quantity of eggs left in your ovaries, which can give an indication of your fertility. PlanAhead involves a blood test for three separate hormones, FSH (or follicle-stimulating hormone), AMH(or Anti-Mullerian Hormone) and Inhibin B. Anyone can buy the test, but you then book yourself in for a blood test either privately or with your family doctor, and send off the resulting blood sample to the lab for a result which comes back within a few weeks.

PlanAhead is a good test because it looks at the levels of all three hormones. Traditionally, doctors have used FSH testing to get an indication of a woman's ovarian reserve, but experts in the field now believe AMH may be a better test. However, it is an expensive test, and if you have any reason to believe you may be approaching an early menopause, you'd be better off asking your doctor to do the test without shelling out for it yourself. It's also really important to understand that this isn't a test of your fertility, just of the store of eggs left in your ovaries, and you shouldn't assume that a good result means you'll be able to get pregnant when you want to, as there could be all kinds of other fertility problems that this test wouldn't highlight.

If you are interested you can buy the test online at www.planaheadtest.com

Bananas for boys

You've probably heard about the new research suggesting that women who eat bananas, and breakfast cereal, are more likely to give birth to boys.

The research group from Exeter and Oxford Universities looked at what women had eaten in the months before they got pregnant. They found that those who had high-calorie diets were more likely to have boys. Breakfast cereal appeared to play a major role, and women who ate it had a significantly higher chance of giving birth to a son. Intake of potassium - found in plenty in bananas - and salt also seemed to be relevant.

I wonder whether these findings would still be relevant for embryos fertilised in vitro...

You can see details of the research on the Exeter University website at www.exeter.ac.uk

Easy IVF

According to The Times , IVF could be about to become so much easier that you could do it in your lunch hour.

Apparently a new device called Invocell would enable most of the treatment to be carried out in a GPs surgery. Instead of mixing eggs and sperm in dishes in the laboratory, the eggs would be put into the device along with washed sperm, and then put back into the vagina. The device would be removed a few days later and fertilised eggs could then be transferred into the womb.

It all sounds quite straightforward, but even with this device, you'd still have to have eggs collected from the ovaries, which isn't something you are ever going to be able to do in your lunch hour, and from a patient perspective I'm not entirely sure the advantages of saving on laboratory bills would make it worthwhile. You can read more at www.timesonline.co.uk

Hope for cancer patients from new research

For some time, fertility clinics have been storing ovarian tissue from women who have cancer and have to undergo chemotherapy, as this can destroy the ovaries and lead to infertility.

Until now, storing the tissue has been a measure doctors have undertaken in the hope that at some point in the future, it may be possible to use it to develop eggs in the laboratory.

Now a team from Edinburgh University have managed to do just that. They added artificial growth hormones to ovarian tissue taken from volunteers who were having caesarean sections, and managed to observe a number of follicles, or egg sacs, developing in the tissue.

It has been suggested that this research means the eggs that develop inside follicles could be used for IVF for cancer patients, and even that it could offer an opportunity for all women to preserve their fertility by freezing ovarian tissue. However, it is important to note that the research team admit they are a long way from this at present, and that they cannot be certain that the eggs they are growing in the laboratory are normal. Despite this, it is still a significant scientific development and a large step forwards. There's a balanced analysis of the research here

A new look

I hope you like this new green look - I think it's more fun than the old one, but if no one else likes it and it hurts your eyes / gives you a headache / is just too green, then let me know, and I'll think about changing back to the old one!