A recent study reveals Femara, a medication that’s FDA-approved to treat breast cancer, may be more effective than current fertility drugs for some women who suffer from PCOS.
Tag: fertility drugs
‘Generally Reassuring’ Findings on Fertility Drugs
Use of fertility drugs doesn’t appear to increase a woman’s long-term risk of breast, ovarian and uterine cancers, new research indicates.
Identical Triplets, Conceived without Fertility Drugs, are ‘One in a Million’
A Sacramento couple hit the genetic lottery when they welcomed identical triplets, conceived without fertility drugs, last month.
Professor: Avoid Purchasing Fertility Drugs Online
A University of Cincinnati researcher is warning people against purchasing fertility drugs online because they might actually have reverse effects.
Secondary Infertility: Tips For Couples Who Have Trouble Conceiving Another Child
Andrea Meisgeier was 33 when she and her husband Eric had their son Maxwell. It was so easy to get pregnant that Meisgeier didn’t worry about the timing of a second pregnancy. But after six years of trying to conceive, the Camas, Wash., couple is coming to terms with the the likelihood that they won’t have another child. Andrea Meisgeier, now 39, took fertility drugs, tried acupuncture and underwent more than $25,000 in fertility treatments that included intrauterine insemination and in vitro fertilization – none of which were successful.
Study Finds No Fertility Drug, Ovarian Cancer Link
Despite lingering concerns that using fertility drugs might raise a woman’s chances for later developing ovarian cancer, new research suggests the drugs don’t contribute any added risk.
Super-ovulation fertility drugs need better monitoring, doctors warn
Canadian fertility doctors are calling for tighter controls on the use of super-ovulation fertility drugs that in some cases are being used merely to make women pregnant faster.
The drugs, a class known as gonadotropins, stimulate a woman’s ovaries to produce multiple eggs for fertilization. But they also carry a high risk of multiple births, as well as ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, where the ovaries keep expanding, growing so fat and swollen they can twist from the sheer weight and leak fluid into the pelvis and abdomen. In rare cases, the syndrome can lead to blood clots, kidney failure, heart failure and death.
Gonadotropins are often used in combination with artificial insemination, or IUI, where sperm is inserted directly into the womb. The appeal for couples is that it costs thousands of dollars less per cycle than in vitro fertilization, which involves retrieving eggs from the woman, mixing them with sperm and transferring the resulting embryos back into the uterus. Read full article.
What Are Fertility Drugs?
There are a variety of drugs used for fertility treatment. Some are used to produce more ovarian egg follicles. Some are also used to suppress the pituitary gland and prevent ovulation. Others are used to support the uterine lining and early pregnancy.
Medications That Affect Follicles:
Eggs are housed in a protective sac called a follicle. To promote the growth of ovarian egg follicles, the pituitary gland naturally secretes the hormone Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) into the blood stream. Typically only enough FSH is secreted each month to promote the growth of one egg follicle despite there being many follicles available in each ovary. A tablet form of fertility medication called clomiphene citrate (Clomid) can be taken to increase the amount of FSH being secreted by the ovary. In this manner clomiphene citrate induces the growth of multiple egg follicles, typically 2-4 in number.
Alternatively, injections of FSH (called gonadotropins, Follistim, Gonal-F, Menopur, and Bravelle) can be used to induce the growth of even more follicles. These injections are given subcutaneously (under the skin) for 8-12 days. Once the follicles are ready, an injection of the hormone hCG (Ovidrel, Pregnyl) is used to ovulate the follicles. At this point eggs are either combined with artificial insemination or harvested and fertilized in the lab (in-vitro-fertilization) to create embryos which can then be transferred directly to the uterus.
Medications That Affect Ovulation:
During in-vitro fertilization treatment, drugs are used to turn off the natural pituitary hormones in order to synchronize egg follicles and prevent premature ovulation. The most common drug used for this purpose are oral contraceptive pills. During in-vitro treatment, injections of gonadotropin help eggs to develop better. However, during this stage eggs become vulnerable to premature ovulation. A second medication called leuprolide acetate (Lupron) can be used, in conjunction with oral contraceptive pills or alone, in order to prevent premature ovulation. Interestingly, leuprolide acetate actually belongs to a class of drugs called GnRH agonists- which, when injected, initially cause the pituitary gland to produce more FSH. However, with continued use, the drug eventually overwhelms the pituitary gland resulting in the opposite effect – pituitary suppression. For women who make a low number of eggs, leuprolide acetate in sometimes administered in micro-dose amounts to promote higher pituitary FSH production in order to yield more eggs. Instead of administering leuprolide acetate for a prolonged period of time to achieve pituitary suppression, a similar medication called a “GnRH antagonist” (Ganirelix, Cetrorelix), can be injected when egg follicles begin to grow. The use of this additional drug prevents the pituitary gland from causing premature ovulation. The “antagonist” provides instant pituitary suppression unlike that of leuprolide acetate which requires prolonged use to achieve suppression.
Medications That Support The Uterine Lining:
During a normal menstrual cycle, one egg follicle is recruited under the influence of pituitary FSH and subsequently ovulates as a result of the pituitary LH surge. The egg follicle makes a potent hormone called estradiol during the first two weeks of the egg’s development (pre-ovulation). After the egg is ovulated the remaining part of the egg follicle then begins to produce progesterone in addition to estradiol. These hormones together cause the uterine lining (the endometrium) to thicken and begin to secrete molecules which help the embryo develop into a pregnancy. In some forms of fertility treatment such as frozen embryo transfer, egg donation and surrogacy, tablets or patches of estradiol and suppositories or injections of progesterone are given to artificially prepare the endometrium to be able to support the early pregnancy.
Fertility Drugs’ Link to Breast Cancer Hinges on Pregnancy, Study Says
Do fertility drugs affect a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer? A new study suggests that the risk hinges on whether they actually help a woman get pregnant.
Scientists have been concerned about the effects of fertility drugs in recent years, citing a possible relationship between the hormones altered by the drugs and those implicated in breast cancer. Studies attempting to pinpoint the link between fertility drugs and cancer risk have varied widely in their conclusions. Some have found a reduction in cancer risk, some an increased risk. Others found no connection at all.
But researchers at the National Institutes of Health found that although the drugs seem to reduce breast cancer risk in young women, the risk goes up when they get pregnant.
Researchers studied pairs of sisters, in total following more than 1,400 women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer before age 50 and more than 1,600 of their sisters who had never had breast cancer. Of these women, 288 reported using ovulation-stimulating fertility drugs, clomiphene citrate and follicle-stimulating hormone, at some point; 141 women reported a pregnancy lasting 10 weeks or more after taking the drugs.
Could Fertility Drugs Make Kids Shorter?
SATURDAY, June 23 (HealthDay News) — For those who need help getting pregnant, the thought of having a child who’s a little shorter than other kids probably won’t be much of a worry. But the question of whether infertility treatment causes unanticipated consequences remains fertile ground for researchers.
In a study scheduled for presentation Saturday at the Endocrine Society annual meeting in Houston, researchers found full-term children conceived with fertility drugs were about one inch shorter than their peers.
The researchers wanted to find out whether there was a difference in height among children whose mothers used only ovarian stimulation by fertility drugs such as Clomid (clomiphene) without in-vitro fertilization (IVF).
Children conceived with the help of ovarian stimulation alone account for about 5 percent of all births in the developed world, according to the researchers.
Previous studies have suggested that children conceived by IVF may be taller than naturally conceived kids. The researchers wanted to know if something in the process of IVF, which includes fertilization and culture of embryos in a laboratory dish, could affect stature. So they studied children conceived without IVF, but with the assistance of fertility drugs that cause ovulation.