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IVF hope increased as new screening test doubles conception rate

The odds for IVF success are currenty less than one in four procedures and with around 37,000 woman in Britain every year undergoing IVF, this will be welcome news.

British scientists have developed a new method, which screens embryos for genetic defects and greatly increases the chance of women becoming pregnant, even in their late thirties. Genetic screening also substantially cuts the risk of conditions like Down’s syndrome.

To date more than 20 babies have been born after using the technique and the wishes of the scientists involved are that it could eventually become standard practice on the National Health Service.

One in six couples faces problems conceiving. However, with this new method, experts achieved a birth in four out of five attempts in older women whose previous IVF attempts had been unsuccessful.

“Astonishing”, was how the team, from Oxford, hailed their results. However they admitted they used the candidates most likely to succeed anyway for the treatment, (The method requires women to produce embryos which progressed to the five day stage).

Stuart Lavery, consultant gynaecologist at the IVF unit at Hammersmith Hospital, said the latest results were still ‘quite amazing when compared to conventional approaches’.

This technique, by the Reprogenetics UK laboratory in Oxford for the Colorado Centre for Reproductive Medicine, took 42 women with an average age of 39 who had endured at least one failed IVF attempt.

The experts tested five-day-old embryos for chromosome abnormalities which could prevent them implanting in the womb, or cause miscarriage.

More than twice as many embryos ended in a pregnancy using the technique compared to a control group of similar patients. In addition, multiple embryos were transferred at the same time.

Although some women miscarried, the birth rate was 80 per cent, compared to 60 per cent in the control group.

Allan Pacey, secretary of the British Fertility Society, said: “Embryology is really crying out for something like this.

“We really haven’t moved on from the science of just looking down the microscope and seeing if an embryo looks good on the basis of some rather loose criteria.

“This is very exciting technology but we do need proper randomised control trials to see if it does what says on tin.”

The screening technique is currently too new to be considered for funding by the NHS and is only offered privately in a handful of IVF clinics in Britain, costing up to £11,000.

The findings will be presented at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) conference in Atlanta this week.

The first baby was born in Britain using a similar technique last month, after his parents underwent 13 failed IVF attempts.

         

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Doctor may have spiked his mistress’s drinks to procure miscarriage

Doctor Edward Erin, 44, spiked his mistress’s drinks in an effort to kill their unborn child a court was told.

First he drugged a cup of tea after staying the night at her home in Tulse Hill, south London, the court heard. Prowse spotted a white powdery residue in the cup. Erin claimed it was limescale.

“He said things like ‘Don’t forget to drink your tea’ and ‘Why don’t you drink your tea and I will do the washing up’,” Sean Larkin, prosecuting, told the Old Bailey. “As she drank the tea Miss Prowse noticed a powdery substance. Dr Erin said it was probably limescale. He took the cup and rinsed it out.”

The mistress became suspicious, so she kept cups and some of the contents and later took them to the police which revealed the presence of lethal drugs.

Texts between the Doctor and his secretary Bella Prowse showed how desperate he was that she should have an abortion, the court heard.

She fixed two appointments at a private clinic but failed to attend and refused to terminate the pregnancy.

After his arrest Dr Erin asked officers if he could phone Ms Prowse to ask her to drop the charges.

Dr Erin, 44, was a consultant respiratory physician in a job share with another doctor at the chest and allergy unit at St Mary’s hospital, Paddington and also a clinical research fellow of clinical studies at the Royal Brompton.

He was also a married man with two young children. He started an affair with Ms Prowse, 32, who was his secretary at St Mary’s, in December 2007.

The following month she found she was pregnant and Erin made it clear he wanted a termination but, after long discussion, she refused.

Said Sean Larkin, prosecuting: “He decided to procure her miscarriage. He obtained prescription drugs that had side effects of a miscarriage and on three separate days he put the drugs into her drinks.

“They were in quantities that showed he expected her to take the drinks and the drugs and then miscarry.”

In February last year Erin spent the night at Ms Prowse’s flat in Brixton and in the morning made her a cup of tea “which was unusual,” said Mr Larkin.

“He told her: ‘Don’t forget to drink your tea’ or ‘Why don’t you drink your tea and I will do the washing up.’

“But she noticed a powdery substance. Erin said it was probably limescale and washed the cup out.”

When she took the cup to the police later analysts found a weak trace of methotrexate - which is so harmful to unborn children women are advised not to become pregnant for two years after taking it.

Later that evening Erin’s wife saw him grinding pills in the kitchen and when she challenged him he claimed they were for an experiment at work.

A few days later Erin arranged to meet Ms Prowse at a Starbucks and had the coffees ready when she arrived.

She noticed the lids had been taken off and replaced. Erin repeatedly told her to drink the coffee but, when he was away, she poured the contents into a bottle.

Later analysis showed the presence of methotrexate and another harmful drug, diclofenac.

Erin later invited her into his office and asked if she wanted some orange juice he had in his fridge. The bottle was full but the seal had been broken, the court heard.

Ms Prowse poured the contents into a cup and noticed a powdery substance. When she took the cup to the police diclofenac was found.

Erin was arrested on St Valentine’s Day in his office at the Royal Brompton.

Erin, of Kensington, west London, denies procuring poison to be used with the intention of causing a miscarriage, administering poison to procure a miscarriage, and two charges of attempting to administer poison.

The trial continues.

         

­Millvina Dean, a baby girl on the Titanic, dies at 97

­Millvina Dean, was the last living survivor of the Titanic and has passed away today from pneumonia aged 97. Her parents were headed for America when she was a baby of two months old. Her father dreamt of opening a tobacco store in Kansas.

Baby Millvina Dean was the youngest person on board the Titanic when it sank on it’s first voyage taking 1,500 souls.

Dean, her mother, and brother were placed in a lifeboat after the Totanic hit an iceberg. 10 They were among the first off the doomed liner out of the 706 passengers and crew who escaped.

Her father, however, remained aboard and was among those who drowned when the giant ship finally went down in the early hours of next day.

Dean, born on 2 February 1912, had been in hospital last week with pneumonia, having worked as a secretary until her retirement. Her death came just a month after Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, stars of the Hollywood blockbuster about the disaster, stepped in to help pay her nursing home fees. The pair joined with James Cameron, the director of the Oscar-winning film, to donate £20,000 to The Millvina Fund.

Dean lived at Ashurst in the New Forest, not far from where she set sail on the liner. In the last year she had to sell some of her family’s possessions at auction to pay for her stay in the nursing home.

Items included a suitcase filled with clothes given to her family when they arrived in America, and compensation letters sent to her mother from the Titanic Relief Fund. The mementoes sold at auction were returned to her by the buyer.

Dean had enjoyed her celebrity status as the last survivor, but remembered the doomed voyage with sadness. She said: “Until the wreckage of the Titanic was found in 1985, nobody was interested in me. Who expects to become famous at that age?”