Present and futuristic developments in fertility treatment | Dr N Layyous

Present and futuristic developments in fertility treatment

The scientific advances of recent years have changed dramatically the infertility treatment. Research and advances will make what seemed impossible as an every day practice in infertility clinics.

Some advances of the present and future researches are:

To obtain eggs from the woman’s ovaries and freeze them for future use.

taking part of the ovary containing immature eggs and freeze it, so that when the need arises maturing of the eggs is carried out in the laboratory.

These freezing processes could help the women who are at risk of losing their fertility as a result of exposure to radiation (during radiotherapy treatment) or chemotherapy.

To make improvement of the culture media used for growing the embryos in the IVF laboratory to reach the blastocyst stage (five days after fertilization) where the best embryos are selected, one or two embryos transferred to the uterus, consequently chances of pregnancy and success rates are increased without the need for transferring many embryos with risks of multiple pregnancy.

The advances in computer technology have enabled choosing the best sperms for doing intracytoplasmic sperm injection by a method called keiss method where the computer chooses the best sperms for use avoiding the human error factor thereby improving the success rates.

using splitting cells instead of sperms.

This method is still under research. The idea is that the 46 chromosomes present in human cells, 2 of which are sex chromosomes. In the women two XX chromosomes and in the man, XY chromosomes. When the egg from the woman (containing 22 +X chromosome) fuses with the sperm from the man containing either 22 +X or 22 +Y chromosome fertilization occur, so it could be possible to use any cell from the man’s body, such as blood cell, for example, split it in the lab and each half could be used (which contain half the chromosome number) to inject inside the egg’s cytoplasm using intracytoplasmic sperm injection method, which will solve the infertility problem for men with no sperms in their seminal fluid or testicles.

Stem cell research

is still confined to labarotories but it is greatly promising where it could be taken from the boys before maturity then frozen to be reimplanted (could be used for those boys who are going to be subjected to chemotherapy). And it will be helpful for infertile men by triggering the stem cells to produce sperms.

Cytoplasm donation where the cytoplasm from the egg of a young woman is transferred into the egg of an older woman thereby improving the chances of pregnancy.

Another method could include the transfer of the nucleus of the egg from an older woman into an egg of a young woman after removing the nucleus containing the genetic material thus improving fertilization and ,pregnancy rate

Intra uterine culture of embryos

This method is still under research where the gametes (eggs and sperms) are put in a special container made from a dissolvable material and then transferred inside the uterus for the material to dissolve in one week to release the embryo inside the uterus at the same time naturally needed to be in the uterus. The difficulty is in finding the proper material for the purpose without being rejected by the uterus.

Artificial uterus

where special plastic incubators are used to provide the suitable atmosphere for the growth and development of the fetus untill maturity, the fetus takes what is needed whether for nourishment or oxygen and completely grown in the artificial uterus. This might be useful for prematurely delivered fetuses or for those women where pregnancy endangers the woman’s life or in those who congenitally the uterus are absent.

Finally, the recent advances in science are numerous to be listed. But, what seemed impossible few years ago is a common practice these days.

Dr Najeeb Layyous F.R.C.O.G

Consultant Obstetrician, Gynecologist and Infertility Specialist