Word: vitro
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...result is a reproductive revolution: an explosion of new techniques for overcoming infertility and an unprecedented rush by would-be parents to take advantage of them. Thirteen years after the birth of the first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, in England, in vitro fertilization (IVF) has not only reset the biological clock for thousands of patients -- and produced some 10,000 babies in the U.S. alone -- but spawned a host of new procedures, like GIFT, ZIFT, microinjection and zona drilling, that offer even greater promise. Today, using the new technology, an infertile couple in their mid-30s has as good...
...brave new technologies stir up conflicting feelings, breeding hope and despair where once there was resignation. The high price of in vitro * treatments (ranging from $6,000 to more than $50,000 per live birth) means that only the rich and well-insured can afford them. Patients who have undergone round after round say it is like riding an emotional roller coaster; you never know when you are going to run into a brick wall and have your heart broken...
...most of these treatments have been supplanted by the family of techniques known as in vitro fertilization. The beauty and power of IVF are that it allows doctors to take many key events in reproduction out of the body, where they are subject to the vagaries of human biology, and perform them in vitro, "in glass." By removing mature eggs from the ovaries, mixing them with sperm in a Petri dish and reintroducing the resulting embryos directly into the uterus, doctors can bypass most of the important barriers to fertility, from low sperm counts to nonfunctioning Fallopian tubes...
...last resort; with success rates running below 5%, most doctors put couples through the full gamut of conventional therapies before turning to IVF. Today a couple in their 30s with undiagnosed infertility is likely to be told to skip invasive tests and exploratory surgeries and go straight to in vitro or related technologies. Streamlined procedures and lowered costs are part of the reason. But it was the development of two variations on the basic IVF procedure -- GIFT and ZIFT -- and the impressive success rates they have produced that have made believers of most doctors...
...didn't, and if it didn't, there was little anyone could do about it. All that has changed dramatically. The growing problem of infertility -- exacerbated by a generation of would-be parents who put off having babies until their 30s and 40s -- and the early successes of in-vitro ("test tube") fertilization have laid the groundwork for a revolution in reproductive technology. Hardly a week goes by without news of a breakthrough to help nature take its course. Last week produced two such announcements: one offers new hope to women with blocked Fallopian tubes; the other promises to extend...