A new hope
Breakthrough treatments aid IVF
FOR patients who are undergoing IVF, Columbia University Fertility Center now offers a new, low-cost treatment called Coral IVF.
With IVF, repeated hormone injections are necessary to stimulate the ovaries to produce multiple follicles, which contain the eggs. With Coral IVF, patients take pills to achieve ovarian stimulation instead.
This potentially offers big savings with costs under $200 per cycle, said Dr. Zev Williams, the center’s director.
In addition, “the whole process is far less stressful, as people are anxious about injecting themselves every night,” said Dr. Williams.
Another novel technology in use here is called Stork, which utilizes a hand-held DNA sequencer to test embryo chromosomes. An abnormal count is the most common cause of miscarriage. Testing can be done on-site.
“This allows us to do a same-day test and transfer of the embryos,” said Dr. Williams. “This avoids having to freeze and thaw an embryo, saving the patient from having to wait at least another month before undergoing an embryo transfer cycle.”