Redefining Success in IVF: One Healthy Baby at a Time

BASKING RIDGE, N.J., Oct. 14, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Reproductive Medicine Associates of New Jersey, (RMANJ), a world-renowned leader in the field of infertility with among the highest IVF success rates in the country, today released an original publication titled "Redefining Success in IVF: Reducing the Burden of Care." The publication, available for free download at www.rmanj.com/whitepaper and as an eBook on iTunes, provides unique insights into the challenges and opportunities of ongoing advances in IVF care.  The expert panel applauds recent steps taken to reduce the occurrence of multiples resulting from IVF while maintaining similar success rates by using a combination of comprehensive chromosome screening (CCS) and single embryo transfer (SET).

As the paper explains, CCS in combination with SET is a highly effective option now available to women who are trying to get pregnant. This recent scientific breakthrough called SelectCCS  is a safe, unique and well-validated embryo selection method.

Panel participant James P. Toner, MD., PhD, FACOG, Director of the Atlanta Center for Reproductive Medicine explains, "CCS offers advancements to patients: it reduces risk, improves efficacy, and avoids many miscarriages, which lead to devastating delay in older women. CCS is really the right tool to build into IVF."

Until recently, visual-based embryo selection methods have limited the use of single embryo transfer, as success rates were not as high as when two or more embryos were used in a process known as double embryo transfer (DET). The concern with DET is that it significantly increases the incidence of twins, which often results in high-risk and complicated pregnancies and deliveries.

With SelectCCS, we are now able to maintain high pregnancy and delivery rates without the added risks and costs associated with carrying multiples. This is safer for the mother – both physically and mentally – and for the child.

Meeting Chairman Richard T. Scott, Jr., M.D., F.A.C.O.G., H.C.L.D, a founding partner of RMANJ notes, "If we can increase access to validated genomic screening platforms like CCS and combine them with single embryo transfer then the complications that have occurred in the past may now be behind us."

The paper also makes recommendations for public health campaigns to help shift the paradigm of care among the IVF industry to encourage the use of single embryo transfer to improve the overall health of mother and child.

• Raise awareness about the risks of multiple gestations and the strong scientific evidence in favor of a paradigm shift;
• Conduct additional research to document and extend outcome optimization to more centers;
• Provide uniform standards for patients and other stakeholders to evaluate fertility centers for state-of-the-art practices.

Further validating the paper's finding's, a recently published, well-controlled trial comparing the transfer of one screened embryo versus two unscreened embryos demonstrated comparable delivery rates between groups but with significantly lower twin delivery rates, the first time this was studied.^[1] A follow-up review of their obstetrical and delivery expenses is currently being evaluated, but interim results will be presented at the 69th Annual American Society for Reproductive Medicine Meeting in Boston, MA.

Members of the "Redefining Success in IVF" expert panel were:

• Gloria A. Bachmann, MD, FACOG, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
• William Henry Barth, Jr, MD, FACOG, Massachusetts General Hospital
• Lee Rubin Collins, JD, RESOLVE, The National Infertility Association
• Maria Costantini-Ferrando, MD, PhD, FACOG, RMANJ
• Maria Lopes, MD, MS, FACOG, Chief Medical Officer CDMI
• James P. Toner, MD, PhD, FACOG, Atlanta Center for Reproductive Medicine
• Edward R. Yeomans, MD, FACOG, Texas Tech University
• Publication Reviewer: Fady I. Sharara, MD, FACOG, Virginia Center for Reproductive Medicine

About Reproductive Medicine Associates of New Jersey
Reproductive Medicine Associates of New Jersey have pioneered and successfully implemented a cutting-edge technology, known as Comprehensive Chromosome Screening (CCS) to more accurately detect healthy embryos that will lead to successful pregnancies and ultimately healthy babies. Other centers have attempted similar testing methods, but RMANJ is the only fertility center in the world to have developed a system of unprecedented accuracy, fully validated through years of rigorous clinical research. RMANJ's Comprehensive Chromosome Screening offers advanced embryo selection with extreme accuracy by detecting and avoiding use of embryos with chromosomal abnormalities prior to transfer and pregnancy.

The fertility experts at RMANJ have among the highest IVF success rates in the country. Since 1999, they have helped bring more than 30,000 babies to loving families.  In addition to serving as the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology at Robert Wood Johnson University Medical School in New Brunswick, NJ, the practice has seven locations in New Jersey. For more information please call RMANJ at 973-656-2089, or visit http://www.rmanj.com.

[1] Forman EJ, Hong KH, Ferry KM et al. In vitro fertilization with single euploid blastocyst transfer: a randomized controlled trial. Fertil Steril 2013.

SOURCE Reproductive Medicine Associates of New Jersey