Ladies, I saw this article in Today Paper
UK doctors scratch womb lining to double IVF success
04:45 AM Oct 02, 2012
LONDON - Gently scratching the lining of the womb a month before in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment improved the chances of pregnancy, British researchers have found.
A review of research on the technique found that twice as many women became pregnant after the procedure than without, boosting pregnancy rates to almost one in two.
Doctors at Guy's and St Thomas' hospital, in central London, are carrying out a larger trial to establish the overall efficacy of the technique with the hope of offering it routinely within three to five years.
It is thought scratching the womb lining stimulates growth factors and repair mechanisms that allow the fertilised egg to embed more easily.
The procedure takes only 15 minutes in clinic, can be carried out by trained nurses and uses simple equipment already in use. It may add less than £100 (S$200) to the average £4,500 of a cycle of IVF treatment.
Dr Tarek El Toukhy, who led the review study, said: "Endometrial scratching uses simple, inexpensive equipment that most hospitals already have and which clinicians are already trained to use, so complications are rare."
The findings from the review of eight studies involving 911 patients are published in the Reproductive Biomedicine Online journal.
In the review, 128 out of 499 women who did not have the womb procedure became pregnant - almost 26 per cent. Of the 412 women who had the procedure, 198 became pregnant, or 48 per cent.
There were no serious side effects reported and early signs are that the doubling in rates will be translated into birth rates.
The women had all suffered repeated unexplained implantation failure, meaning other aspects of their fertility seemed normal but the egg did not implant properly in the womb.
Dr Maha Ragunath, Clinical Director of Care Nottingham, the biggest private provider of fertility treatment in England, said the technique should be offered widely to all IVF patients in the near future. The Daily Telegraph