How ‘kiss hormone’ curbs IVF side effects

WOMEN having IVF could soon receive a milder, less dangerous form of treatment using the ‘kiss hormone’.

British doctors have discovered a method that mimics the body’s own way of ripening eggs, lowering the risk of life-threatening complications.

Normal IVF can leave women with massively enlarged ovaries and at risk of blood clots and fluid build-up in the lungs.

Kisspeptin, a natural hormone used to stimulate a woman’s eggs, has been found to be kinder for patients at risk of this ‘ovarian overstimulation’.

The hormone is called the kiss hormone because it was discovered in Hershey, Pennsylvania, home to the chocolate company that makes Hershey’s Kisses.

The Imperial College London study of 60 women at high risk of ovarian overstimulation found none ended up with a severe form of the complication after being given the drug.

This compares with an expected rate of 10 to 15 per cent using conventional drugs.

Lead author, Dr Ali Abbara said: ‘Kisspeptin works naturally in the body to produce the hormones for a woman to grow the eggs she needs to become pregnant. Unlike the most commonly used drug, kisspeptin is much safer with regards to the risk of a dangerous complication of IVF, which can risk the wellbeing of otherwise healthy women.’

Women having fertility treatment need to produce more than their natural one egg a month, to boost their chances of fertilisation with their partner’s sperm.

But the main existing drug, human chorionic gonadotropin, causes around one woman in ten to suffer moderate to severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS).

This can cause women’s egg sacs to swell to more than twice their size, according to experts.

The toxins they produce cause excess fluid to build up in the abdomen, or around the lungs and heart, causing severe pain, while at least four British women have died as a result.

Kisspeptin was first tried on women to see if it would work three years ago by researchers led by Imperial endocrinologist Professor Waljit Dhillo.

It has been found to cause very few cases of OHSS, which could make IVF less scary and painful for many women.

The Imperial College London researchers have seen 63 healthy babies born to women using the ‘kiss hormone’.

Crucially, they have discovered that two injections of kisspeptin work better to produce eggs than one injection.

This raised the percentage of women producing a target number of eggs from around 45 per cent to 71 per cent.

Currently women at risk of OHSS are given a synthetic version of a gonadotropin hormone but this is thought to reduce pregnancy rates.

Dr Abbara said: ‘Kisspeptin offers a novel avenue for improving the efficacy of IVF treatment without endangering a woman’s health.’

‘It works naturally in the body’