Word: implantation
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Kessler's decision is based on evidence -- some of it still sealed under court order -- that has come to light since the FDA last reviewed safety information in November. At that time, an advisory committee recommended that the implants be left on the market. But studies released in the course of recent legal proceedings against Dow Corning Wright, the largest U.S. implant manufacturer, suggest that the company may have known about safety problems for years and kept them under wraps. Kessler said he has also received a number of case reports from rheumatologists linking the device to autoimmune disorders...
...testimony was impassioned on both sides. Implant manufacturers brought out reams of safety-test data, claiming their products were essentially harmless. Some users spoke of gaining self-esteem by reshaping their bodies, and of a psychological boost in battles against breast cancer. But others told stories of pain from internal scar tissue, diseases they attributed to the implants, and deformities suffered when the prostheses ruptured or shifted. In the end, though, the panel voted unanimously to recommend that implants stay on the market, and FDA Commissioner David Kessler is expected to concur...
...original procedure, it turned out, was that the embryos just wouldn't stick. Helped by hormone treatments, a woman might produce dozens of eggs each cycle. Her husband's sperm might fertilize 10 of them. But for reasons that remained mysterious, the embryos simply refused to take root -- or implant -- on the walls of the uterus. Even the best-run clinics were getting success rates not much higher than 15% to 20% just five years...
Scientists now know that implantation is one of the most difficult hurdles in the human reproductive system. It is estimated that even among perfectly fertile couples, as many as one-third of all pregnancies are lost, before anyone knows they have begun, because the embryos fail to implant in the uterus wall. Only in the past few years have researchers begun to understand why this...
...lodged in the womb at a rate more than five times the national average for IVF. "I was so excited I couldn't sleep at night," says Cohen. Apparently eggs with a hole in their outer membrane somehow benefit from that hole. Cohen theorizes that embryos that don't implant may be having trouble "hatching" through the shell that housed the original egg. The tiny hole Cohen makes to help the sperm get in may be helping the embryo get out -- and may suggest a method for helping increase implantation rates across the board...