LONDON: Scientists are developing a new fertility treatment which they claim would allow women to have a simpler and cheaper form of IVF -- a method that could fit into their lunch break.
According to them, the Invocell device is designed to enable IVF to be performed without complex lab equipment and it would also make the whole procedure faster, more convenient and less expensive, 'The Times' reported today.
"You don't need a complex IVF centre, a lab, lots of equipment. You can perform this procedure in an office," lead scientist Claude Ranoux of Massachusetts-based BioXcell, which is planning to launch the device in Britain this year, said.
In standard IVF, eggs are fertilised with sperm outside the body, and any resulting embryos are then left to develop in culture for three to five days before the best ones are transferred to the womb.
But, according to him, the Invocell device is a sealed capsule that allows fertilisation to take place inside the body, in the vaginal cavity.
The procedure -- a woman would first be given mild drugs to stimulate her ovaries, and then eggs would be removed from them while she is under sedation. Up to seven eggs are then put into the Invocell capsule, along with washed sperm. The capsule is then placed inside the vagina.
After three days, the patient would return for a second appointment, in which the capsule is removed and any fertilised embryos are examined for quality. The best one or two would then be transferred to the womb.
"The first appointment would take about 90 minutes and the second half an hour," Ranoux was quoted by the British newspaper as saying.
BioXcell has already completed about 800 trial cycles, obtaining a clinical pregnancy rate of 19.7 per cent. Its data were presented last week to the International Society for Mild Approaches in Assisted Reproduction conference in London.
However, British fertility doctors have questioned whether the new form of IVF would be popular.
"A major drawback would be that embryos could not be observed immediately after fertilisation, to make sure that it has taken place normally," Simon Fishel of Care Fertility in Nottingham said.
