(2 of 2)
She was actually the fourth human born from an egg matured outside the ovary. In 1991, Dr. Kwang Yul Cha and his colleagues at the Cha Woman's Hospital in Seoul removed the ovaries of a woman with fibroid tumors and isolated immature eggs, which were then ripened and fertilized in the lab. They transferred the embryos to a surrogate mother, who produced triplets. Since then Cha has not repeated his success.
Trounson and the Monash team, in contrast, have impregnated several more women. IVF America, a Greenwich, Connecticut, company associated with Monash, plans to develop the technique in the U.S.
If Trounson's approach works as well as he says, it could transform the economics of the test-tube baby business. Standard IVF can cost more than $100,000, but Trounson says he can slash that figure 80% by eliminating drugs, curtailing testing and reducing doctors' fees.
American fertility experts doubt that Trounson's method will save as much money as he claims. What's more, they question whether the treatment will be useful for the majority of infertile women. "I don't think we have data to prove that this will give the woman a better chance of success," says Dr. Suheil Muasherof the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Norfolk, Virginia. Trounson admits that he cannot predict the procedure's success rate, but in cattle, 30% of the embryos from immature eggs become calves. That's slightly better than the current 25% success rate for IVF in humans.
It's too soon to tell whether Trounson's technique will revolutionize the treatment of infertility. But the desperate couples who face the emotionally and financially draining ordeal of making a test-tube baby will be eager to find out.