In Vitro Fertilization is the fertilization, which is conducted outside the body in a test tube. Nowadays, there are more than 1,000,000 test tube babies around the world. Pregnancy rates as well as live birth rates keep improving, and lead to a steady increase in the number of In Vitro Fertilization treatment cycles, which are performed worldwide.
Risks and complications of IVF treatment
Any medical or surgical procedure has its own complications and side effects, and IVF treatment makes no exclusion. However, there are very few gestational surrogate, who may experience any of the side effects and possible complications.
To the most common complications, which are possible to occur in the result of the IVF treatment belong: the failure of IVF treatment, some definite problems, which are associated with ovarian stimulation by fertility drugs, there is the risk of the ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome development, the risk of multiple pregnancy as well as the risk, associated with the egg collection process. In addition, it is also possible that there will be ectopic pregnancy, etc.
Failure of IVF treatment
The failure of IVF treatment is considered to be one of the most common complications. To the possible reasons of IVF treatment failure may be referred the following ones:
Canceled cycles – about 10% of treatment cycles become abandoned before the egg collection process;
Egg collection failure occurs in about 1% of cases;
Fertilization failure occurs in about 5% of cases;
Implantation failure most often occurs because of the defective embryo or endometrium or because of poor synchronization.
Adnexal Torsion
The very term “adnexal torsion” means twisting the stimulated ovary on itself, which causes cutting of its own blood supply. This kind of complication of In Vitro Fertilization treatment does not occur often, the risk of it is no more than 0, 5%. Adnexal torsion’s risk becomes greater, if a surrogate mother suffers from OHSS. As a rule ovarian torsion causes feeling of severe pain and tenderness in the lower part of abdomen.
In case if no treatment is conducted, the woman may die. The only possible treatment is conducting a surgery with the aim of untwisting of the ovary. However, there are cases, when complete removal of the ovary is necessary to conduct.
The risk of ovarian and breast cancer
It is considered that there is the connection between the fertility drugs application during the In Vitro Fertilization treatment and the increased risk of ovarian, endometrial and breast cancer. Recent investigations suggest the following regarding each kind of cancer, mentioned above:
Ovarian cancer
The studies, which link ovarian stimulation drugs to increased risk of ovarian cancer are of a controversial character. The evidence is observational; moreover, most of the investigations contain significant problems, concerning subgroup analysis and the inability to keep other cancer confounding factors under control. There are investigations conducted, which prove that women, who suffer from infertility and who take fertility drugs, however do not achieve pregnancy have a significantly increased risk of ovarian cancer, in comparison to those women, who have no problems with fertility.
Breast cancer
In accordance with the investigations conducted, there is no significant increased risk of having breast cancer in the result of fertility drugs application.
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