ADVANCED FERTILITY TREATMENTS that were previously unavailable in Ireland are to be offered by Beacon CARE Fertility.
The clinic has been licensed to provide a range of new advanced fertility treatments, including Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis and Chromosome Screening.
It will be the first time that authorisation has been granted to perform these cutting-edge fertility treatment and screening procedures in Ireland, meaning Irish couples will no longer have to travel overseas to receive such treatments.
What are the treatments being offered?
The Beacon Clinic says that Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) may be used for couples at risk of passing on an inherited disorder to their baby and allows for genetic testing of an embryo prior to implantation and before pregnancy occurs:
It is used in conjunction with IVF and allows only those embryos diagnosed as being free of a specific genetic disorder to be transferred into a woman to try to achieve a pregnancy. CARE Fertility was the first UK clinic to obtain a licence to perform this early diagnostic test for tissue typing.
It explains that Array CGH is a new technique which screens the egg and embryo for chromosomal abnormalities, which are a major cause of miscarriage and IVF failure:
CGH has been shown to greatly improve IVF birth rate per embryo transferred, minimise the incidence of miscarriages and birth defects caused by chromosomal abnormalities and reduce the incidence of multiple pregnancies whilst maintaining a high live birth rate.
Array CGH is suitable for many patients, particularly women who are aged over 37, men who have been shown to have sperm at risk of carrying abnormal chromosomes and couples who have had several miscarriages or several failed attempts at IVF for which no explanation has been found. Array CGH is a technology pioneered by CARE Fertility in 2008.
In addition, Beacon Care Fertility also offers EVES (Egg Vitrification Egg Storage) which it says is much more efficient than previous more conventional methods of egg freezing with a freeze-thaw survival rate of over 85 per cent as opposed to a previous rate of less than 50 per cent.
Reproductive Immunology, a treatment pioneered in the UK by CARE Fertility, is also offered to couples. The Clinic says it has helped hundreds of couples with recurrent IVF/ICSI failures and recurrent miscarriage by preventing the woman’s immune system from rejecting the implanting embryo.
‘Rapid advance’
“IVF science has advanced very rapidly in recent years,” said Sandra Brett, Medical Director, Beacon CARE Fertility Dublin. “We are privileged to be able to offer new technologies and services within Ireland with the full support of CARE UK who have been at the forefront of many recent developments.
“In 2009 CARE was involved in the birth of the world’s first baby following Array CGH screening and the UK’s first baby born through PGD for HLA tissue matching the following year. It is hugely significant that these treatments are now available to women and couples in Ireland for the very first time.”
Pauline Cullen, Commercial Director of Beacon Medical Group added that the ground-breaking treatments offered by the Clinic have had “significant levels of success in the UK”.
The Beacon Medical Campus in Dublin, the Clinic is a joint venture between Beacon Medical Group and CARE Fertility, the UK’s largest independent provider of fertility treatment, performing over 5,000 procedures annually.
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