For a variety of reasons, patients may undergo more than one in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment, involving medications and egg retrieval, to have their desired family. On the surface, the decision to change or alter the medication protocol is simple; stay the course if things go well, change if they don’t. Often overlooked however, is that the variable most subject to change is not the protocol; it’s the highly variable quality of follicles, eggs, and sperm that is present with every treatment cycle. That means, perhaps counter-intuitively, that even using the same protocol can produce different results, while changing protocols may not impact the outcome.
This concept was confirmed in September 2021 in Fertility and Sterility by Wald and colleagues, who reported improved fertilization and blastocyst development rate when the protocol was kept the same. Protocols have modernized to the point where now today’s IVF outcomes are less related to medication protocol and instead are highly related to the quality of the follicles, eggs, and sperm that are present in that particular cycle along with meticulous IVF laboratory techniques. We at MCRM are highly effective at creating families by keeping our focus on optimizing those aspects.
If you’d like to discus your fertility care with one of our specialists, contact us today, to schedule an initial appointment.
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