HEALTH COACH - Infertility: the century procedure offers new hope

HEALTH COACH -

 Infertility: the century procedure offers new hope  





 A new study demonstrates that an ancient medical imaging procedure could dramatically increase the chance of an infertile couple from conceiving. The results are likely to awaken great changes in the way infertility is addressed. 
 
  
  The old imaging technique gives new hope as a treatment for infertility. 

 Infertility tends to be a taboo subject - it is rarely discussed even among family members and friends. 

 However, infertility affects much of the public. For example, in the United States, 1 million married women (aged 15-44) can not be pregnant after 12 months of trying to conceive. 

 An estimated 6.9 million women in the United States in the same age bracket have used infertility services. 

 Infertility is a complex problem; There are a number of reasons why it can occur in both men and women. Although life factors and medical conditions may play a role, causal factors are not always as clear. Often doctors do not find a reason behind infertility. 

 Assisted reproductive technology (ART) has revolutionized the treatment of fertility. The most common type of ART is in vitro fertilization (IVF), in which the eggs of a woman are removed and fertilized in the laboratory, and the resulting embryos are then transferred to the woman. ART can be very effective and about 1.6 percent of all children born each year in the US are designed as a result of this treatment. 

 However, IVF is a relatively long procedure, it can be costly to perform and success rates vary greatly. 

 A recent study, which tests a procedure that dates back 100 years, offers the hope of a much cheaper and faster solution. 

 Flushing the fallopian tubes 

 A study conducted by Professor Ben Mol of the Robinson Research Institute of the University of Adelaide in Australia, studied an infertility treatment used for the first time there 100 years ago: washing the fallopian tubes with an iodized poppy seed oil 
.

 The procedure is called hysterosalpingography (HSG) and was first performed in 1917. The procedure is an X-ray dye test and is used to examine the uterus and fallopian tubes of Women with pregnancy problems. Water-based or oil-based solutions are used to rinse the tubes. 

 HSG was designed as an imaging procedure rather than a treatment. "Over the last century, pregnancy rates among infertile women would have increased after their tubes had been flushed with water or oil during this X-ray procedure," Prof. Mol. "Until now, it was unclear whether the type of solution used in the procedure affected the change in fertility." 

 In order to study whether this ancient procedure could help infertile couples to reproduce, Mol has set up a study called H2Oil in collaboration with Dr Kim Dreyer and Dr Velja Mijatovic, Department of Reproductive Medicine, VU University Medical Center Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His findings were recently presented at the 13th World Congress on Endometriosis in Vancouver, Canada. 

 The study involved 1,119 women, all classified as infertile and actively trying for a child. Half of the participants received an HSG using oil (in particular, the product is Lipiodol Ultra-Fluid, an iodized solution of fatty acids based on poppy seeds). The other half of the participants had an HSG using water. 

  Almost 40 percent of women in the oil group and 29 percent in the water group designed within 6 months following the procedure. 

 According to Professor Mol, the results were "more exciting than we had anticipated". The results are published this week in  New England Journal of Medicine . Finding such an important effect using a one-time intervention is unusual. 

 
  " Successful pregnancy rates were significantly higher in the oil-based group and after only one treatment.This was a result Important for women who would have had no other mode of action other than seeking treatment for IVF, it offers new hopes to infertile couples. "
 
 Ben Mol 
 

 Keep it in the family 

 In an interesting turn, Mol himself revealed that it had been designed as a result of HSG. After several years of infertility, her mother underwent the procedure (also using Lipiodol). When he began to investigate HSG, he was unaware of this fact. He said, "It was only after I began to research this technique that my family told me what had happened [...] Also a younger brother. So this is quite possible - in fact, according to the research of our team, it is very likely - that my brother and I are both the result of this technique that helps my mother to get fertility. "

 How does HSG increase fertility? The short answer to this question is that no one is sure. The theory is that some types of debris that interfere with fertility are flushed from the system during HSG. To date, nothing more is known. 

 Given that the results of the current study are so intriguing, it is likely that further research will be conducted in the years to come. As mentioned earlier, IVF can be effective but costly, involves multiple visits to the hospital and involves a series of risks. 

 HSG, on the other hand, is fast, relatively cheap and, during its 100 years of use, no side effects have been reported. 

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