IVF clinic ‘overdoses’ gave women 70 eggs in just a single cycle

Health alert as up to 10,000 put at risk by huge amounts of hormone

FERTILITY clinics are ‘needlessly’ giving thousands of women a year potentially dangerous doses of IVF drugs – putting them at risk of strokes and heart attacks.

A leading expert is warning that women ‘desperate’ to have babies are being overdosed with powerful ovary- stimulating drugs to boost their chances of conceiving.

Professor Geeta Nargund, who works in the NHS and private sector, claims some clinics are giving far too much ‘follicle stimulating hormone’, raising the risk of patients suffering a serious side effect of IVF called ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome.

While mild symptoms of OHSS involve abdominal swelling, weight gain and nausea, in severe cases blood clots can result, which can trigger potentially fatal strokes, heart attacks and pulmonary embolisms.

Now official figures seen by The Mail on Sunday have revealed that up to 10,000 IVF patients a year are having their ovaries stimulated to such an extent that they produce 15 or more eggs at once.

This ‘significantly’ increases the odds of OHSS, studies show.

In a handful of cases since 2013 women have been made to produce over 70 eggs at once. Under natural circumstances, a woman would only release that number in six years.

Prof Nargund said: ‘Too many clinics are needlessly giving women doses of hormones that are too high, putting them at increased risk of OHSS.’

Women may not always be told the dangers, she said, ‘nor told that high drugs doses do not necessarily lead to a better chance of a child’.

She said IVF doctors were morally obliged to give their ‘vulnerable’ patients the full picture. ‘These women will do anything we tell them if they think it’s going to increase their chances of having a baby,’ she said. ‘They feel desperate.’

While most OHSS cases were mild, she warned ‘there is a risk of death if OHSS is severe and not managed early’.

OHSS resulted in at least 715 women being admitted to hospital across England last year. One woman died from OHSS in 2005 and another i n 2006, according to the Office for National Statistics – but Prof Nargund feared some OHSS deaths may have been wrongly attributed to other causes.

Every year, more than 10,000 IVF ‘ cycles’ result in 15 or more eggs being collected from a patient, figures released by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in response to a parliamentary question show.

That equates to one in every seven fertility treatments.

An HFEA spokesman said: ‘We are working hard with clinics to ensure that the processes and systems for identifying, reporting and preventing OHSS are as rigorous as possible.’