IVF clinics are pushing women to buy needless extra treatments

WOMEN desperate to have children are being put under pressure to pay for additional IVF treatment, the fertility watchdog warns today.

Sally Cheshire, chairman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, admits she has no powers to prevent unscrupulous clinics selling these procedures.

Such add-ons include screening to select the best embryos, procedures to help them implant into the womb and drugs to prevent a woman’s body rejecting them.

They can cost between £100 and £3,500 on top of a standard course of IVF, which is £4,000.

But Oxford University research, shown on the BBC’s Panorama programme in November, exposed how 26 out of 27 treatments were ineffective. Experts said most had ‘no benefit whatsoever’ and were falsely raising women’s hopes.

Addressing a fertility conference in Central London today, Mrs Cheshire will warn of a recent ‘step change’ in the promotion of ‘add ons’ by clinics.

She will say: ‘An increasing number of patients tell us they feel unsure about IVF treatment add-ons, whether they work and are worth the extra cost. This puts pressure on patients to make difficult decisions at what is already a stressful time for them. We are concerned about the recent step change in the use of treatment add-ons, but unfortunately have limited powers to stop clinics offering them, nor to control pricing.’

Professor Adam Balen, chairman of the British Fertility Society, will also warn of the ‘confusion’ surrounding add-ons.

At the conference, hosted by the Progress Educational Trust, he will say: ‘It is important to define what is meant by an addon, as there has been a lot of confusion and many so-called add- ons are in reality part of standard treatments.

‘The treatment of infertility has evolved in the UK without adequate funding for research and innovation, so the big question is: when should new treatments be introduced into clinical practice, and how should they be paid for?’

One of the most controversial add- ons is ‘preimplantation genetic screening’ – which costs up to £3,500 – whereby embryos are checked for abnormalities.

But a trial in 2007 found that early forms of this technique could actually harm the embryo and reduce the chances of giv- ing birth. Although most clinics now offer more accurate versions of the screening, there is no clear evidence it boosts success rates.

Last week an eminent fertility doctor warned add- ons were being promoted to women who were too old for IVF to work. Professor Hans Evers, of Maastricht University in the Netherlands, said clinics should stop offering treatment to patients over the age of 42 as the success rate was only 5 per cent.

He also warned that many centres were promoting ‘nonsense’ add-ons to these women ‘which don’t help’.