In the second quarter of 2006, Tu Du Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City will apply the technique of in vitro maturation of immature eggs. As a result, women suffering from infertility due to polycystic ovary syndrome will have the chance to become mothers.
Master Vuong Thi Ngoc Lan, Deputy Head of the Reproductive Medicine Department at Tu Du Hospital, stated that in vitro maturation of immature eggs is a new technique, currently successfully applied in only four countries: South Korea, Denmark, Japan, and Canada.
According to Dr. Lan, there are many causes of female infertility: endometriosis, damaged fallopian tubes, weak sperm, and ovulation disorders. Among these ovulation disorders, 75% are caused by polycystic ovary syndrome, which is most commonly found in women of reproductive age. These women experience infertility due to failure to ovulate; to treat this, they must use hormonal medications to stimulate ovulation and retrieve mature eggs for in vitro fertilization. Without medication, the retrieved eggs will certainly be immature.
With this new technique, patients with polycystic ovary syndrome do not need to use ovarian stimulation medications and can still achieve fertilization. Doctors can retrieve immature eggs via vaginal aspiration, then culture them in a special environment outside the human body for about 24 hours until they mature before fertilizing them using the intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) technique. This method, known as In Vitro Maturation (IVM), has emerged in the last decade. The challenge of this technique lies in creating the egg-culturing environment—a secret that other countries keep closely guarded. Also, retrieving immature eggs is quite difficult as it requires a special needle to extract tiny follicles from the mobile ovaries.
The advantages of the IVM method include cost savings (reducing costs by one-third compared to conventional in vitro fertilization due to the absence of ovarian stimulation medications), completely avoiding the risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, shortening treatment time, and reducing the monitoring time for patients. In terms of costs, compared to IVF, IVM requires an additional step for egg maturation costing about $200-300, but on the other hand, it does not involve medication, thus saving 15-20 million VND. Overall, when considering the entire process, IVM can reduce costs by one-third for patients compared to IVF.
Approximately 300 babies have been born worldwide using the immature egg culture technique. So far, there have been no reports of increased abnormal rates or developmental disorders in these children. For Tu Du Hospital, the two biggest challenges in implementing the immature egg maturation technique are the aspiration process and the environment for culturing matured eggs outside the body. The hospital has been monitoring and compiling information worldwide on this technique since 2000, and in 2004, it sent two doctors to study in South Korea. Around February 2006, these two doctors will travel to Japan to complete the final steps, and a few months later, the hospital will implement the technique.
