On 30th anniversary of 1st American "test-tube" baby, Seattle expert forecasts big jump in pregnancy rates
Fertility treatment will soon bring 80-percent chance of pregnancy for most patients 40 and under, he predicts
Seattle, April 22, 2011 - For about ten years after the first American baby was born from in -vitro fertilization (IVF) in 1981, the odds of achieving a pregnancy from this technique were about one in 10. Now, thirty years later, the odds are approaching even or better for most women, and the best fertility centers will soon reach an 80-percent chance of pregnancy for women 40 and under, predicts Michael Soules, M.D., a physician and senior partner at Seattle Reproductive Medicine, who has been practicing reproductive medicine as long as there has been IVF.
Such a high success rate would help many more women who struggle to conceive children -- a condition spotlighted during National Infertility Awareness Week, April 25 to May 2.
An internationally recognized expert in fertility, Dr. Soules has seen the field evolve from science fiction to mainstream medicine since the world's first IVF birth in 1978. Three years later, the first American IVF baby from IVF - and the fifteenth worldwide - was Elizabeth Jordan Carr, born December 1981, in Norfolk, Virginia.
When English baby Louise Brown made headlines as the world's first so-called "test-tube baby," doctors worldwide struggled to replicate the results, but Soules was convinced that the procedure wasn't a fluke, and began working in 1982 to open an IVF clinic at the University of Washington. Over the decades, constant improvement and refining of techniques has led IVF success rates to climb to nearly 60 percent for women 40 and under. By contrast, the odds of a highly fertile couple naturally conceiving through unprotected sex is about 20 percent per month.
When Soules started in the field, he recalls, physicians and researchers were inventing the techniques and science as they went along. As he was preparing to open the University of Washington clinic, the new lab director regularly visited a slaughterhouse to trade a carton of cigarettes for bucket of cow ovaries, so he could practice extracting eggs.
"It was all seat of your pants; the studies just didn't exist to know how to do it," Soules says. "Now after 30 years, it's pretty standard. The formula has been worked out to the last little detail."
Soules, a past president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, has published and lectured around the world. He has worked with RESOLVE, the national infertility association, for more than a decade and been recognized as one of the nation's top obstetricians and gynecologists, by Consumers' Research Council of America
He notes several advances that have made IVF safe and effective:
- ICSI or intracytoplasmic sperm injection, which allows a trained embryologist to inject a single sperm directly into an egg under a microscope. This helps couples facing male factor infertility.
- Blastocyst transfer, which gave clinics the ability to let embryos grow outside the body for five days before they're implanted - two days longer than was previously possible. This has allowed fertility specialists better odds of choosing healthy embryos for transfer to the mother's uterus.
- Preimplantation genetic diagnosis, which can help identify embryos free from genetic defects, has minimized the occurrence of specific serious genetic diseases carried by the prospective patients.
"Every advance led to an overall higher pregnancy rate," Soules says.
Looking ahead, he sees the IVF success rate climbing even higher due to emerging research, such as lab tests that will help doctors and scientists pick the most viable embryos to implant. Currently, specialists select embryos based only on appearance. He also says new immunology research about the uterus will help, too. Some women lack an immune response to an embryo, making pregnancy much more difficult. But doctors will soon know more about solving this problem.
Still, perhaps the biggest change has not been medical -- but societal. Soules says the days are past when fertility specialists were accused of playing God. Now IVF is an accepted -- and welcome -- field of treatment. But even decades later, the physician says the joy of helping a couple conceive has not diminished.
"At Christmas time, the clinic just gets buried in cards with baby pictures," he says. "The couples are very grateful. They've struggled, and that makes it very gratifying to have their dreamed fulfilled. "
About Seattle Reproductive Medicine
Seattle Reproductive Medicine is the largest fertility center west of the Mississippi River, with 11 full-time physicians practicing in four locations. Led by a nationally recognized team of physicians, SRM offers comprehensive, state-of-the-art assistance for patients with infertility and other reproductive disorders. Practice partners have been awarded National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grants and their work in reproductive aging has also received international recognition. For more information, visit www.SeattleFertility.com or call (206) 301-5000.
