New Fertility Treatment Lowers Costs, Risks

You’ve got to love the New York Daily News. Headlining an article about a new, less expensive fertility treatment a doctor in NYC is attempting, they trumpet “Have a baby at new low, low price!” and the lede is “A Manhattan fertility doctor is offering a recession special: test-tube babies at bargain-basement prices.”

Hi. We don’t call them test-tube babies here in the 21st century anymore, FYI.

I thought this might mean that a doctor was lowering his price for in-vitro fertilisation because of the recession. It’s not commonly covered by insurance and can cost $US10,000 to $US15,000 a pop.

But what Dr. Joel Batzofin is doing is starting what he calls a long-term clinical trial of a new technique he believes he is the first to perfect. Called in-vitro maturation, the procedure harvests immature eggs, bathes them in hormones until they are ready, then (according to the story) transfers fertilised embryos.

What the story skips, of course, is that the eggs have to be fertilised by sperm somewhere along the line to become embryos, unless he’s doing something incredibly groundbreaking. But it sounds like essentially what he is doing is what fertility drugs do inside the body — coax reluctant ovaries to produce a mature egg.

This is less expensive than traditional IVF at about $US8,000 per cycle. It can also avoid ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome where the ovaries produce way too many eggs. At best that hurts like crazy, at worst you could develop trouble breathing and other serious problems.

So far no pregnancies have resulted, although several women are waiting to see if the healthy embryos they transferred will take. Batzofin says he’ll only try 20 times before ending the trial.

I don’t know that I’d stake my hopes, dreams, and $US8,000 which is still a pretty penny in any event on an unproven theory, but I also love that at least one doctor is trying to find something that works that is less invasive and expensive.