{"id":225,"date":"2019-01-15T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2019-01-15T12:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=225"},"modified":"2020-03-15T09:56:32","modified_gmt":"2020-03-15T09:56:32","slug":"patients-and-ivf-add-on-treatments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=225","title":{"rendered":"Patients and IVF add on treatments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since the start of the \u2018Remaking the Human Body\u2019 project there have been some significant developments in debates around the state of fertility treatment in the UK. Just over two years ago, BBC Panorama presented a documentary entitled Inside Britain\u2019s Fertility Business<\/a>\u00a0(28 November 2016) that questioned the quality of scientific evidence to support \u2018add on\u2019 treatments in IVF. In this context, add ons refer to treatments, procedures or tests that are offered in addition to \u2018standard\u2019 IVF. These are often available to patients at additional monetary cost.<\/p>\n

The Panorama documentary emphasised that some treatments are offered to fertility patients without being supported by rigorous evidence that they work, and it set out concerns about patients not being fully informed about the limitations of these treatment options. Designed to provoke, the documentary opened with three questions that revolve around trust, effectiveness and patient protection (reproduced in direct quotation here): can we trust everything Britain\u2019s multimillion pound fertility industry tells us; how effective are the treatments offered to thousands of couples by fertility doctors; and should Britain\u2019s fertility patients be better protected?<\/p>\n

The discussion around add ons was once again reinvigorated following the publication of findings from a randomised control trial<\/a> undertaken in Australia that presented no clear evidence that one particular add on, the endometrial scratch (where the lining of the womb is \u2018scratched\u2019 to help the embryo implant), improves live birth rates. This research was presented at a European embryology conference (see Alina Geampana\u2019s post on her visit to this conference here<\/a>) and prompted media attention to the moral quandaries of patients undergoing, and often paying for, treatments that are still-to-be proven (see for instance this article by the Guardian<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The position of time-lapse embryo imaging<\/strong><\/p>\n

It has been important for the research project to follow discussions about add ons, given that time-lapse embryo imaging technologies are included in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority’s (HFEA) list of add on treatments, and I am particularly interested in how these debates might relate to patient experiences of IVF. At the time of writing, the HFEA categorises time-lapse as \u2018amber\u2019 in their traffic light rating system, which means that early studies on the effectiveness and safety of time-lapse have produced promising results but more evidence is needed to support its use.<\/p>\n

Improving patient information<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since the Panorama documentary, questions about add on treatments continue to shape the UK media landscape around reproductive technologies and have periodically re-emerged in public debates. These debates often revolve around the need to improve the information that is provided to patients about their treatment options. For instance, the HFEA\u2019s 2017-2020 strategy<\/a> includes the aim to \u2018increase patients\u2019 understanding of the science and evidence base behind treatments and added extras known as add ons, and of their safety and effectiveness.<\/em>\u2019 Following this, in the summer of 2017 the HFEA launched a fertility patient survey that investigated patient experiences of add on treatments. While the majority of respondents (at 66%) felt satisfied with the information they received about add ons and their evidence base, a large proportion (at 34%) also felt that they had not received enough information and 44% rated their overall experience of being offered add on treatments as negative. Concerns that patients had about add ons were often related to the price of treatment combined with complex emotional pressures to try \u2018anything\u2019 in the hope that it might <\/em>work. A summary of the 2017 survey results can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A more extensive follow up survey was commissioned by the HFEA during 2018. The results of this survey showed that 77% of fertility clinic users who had used an add on were satisfied with how open and transparent the costs of these were. And 69% felt that they understood the scientific evidence around the effectiveness of add on treatments. Interestingly, this survey included a much broader categorisation of add on treatments than the official definition that appears on the HFEA’s website; for instance, it included massage, meditation and ‘other complimentary treatments’ within the response options for add on treatments. Importantly, the survey also found that patients’ experiences of add ons was shaped by whether they were undertaking fertility treatment on the NHS or privately, as well as how many cycles they had been through so far, where people in later rounds of IVF were more likely to consider additional treatment options. The full 2018 survey report can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the summer of 2018, the HFEA published the 9th<\/sup> edition of their code of practice<\/a>, which includes new and more explicit text that requires fertility clinics to inform prospective fertility patients about the add ons that they may be offered, as well as any evidence of their effectiveness or potential risks. This is significant in that it places the responsibility to provide appropriate information on clinics rather than relying on individual patients to make informed choices. Later on in the autumn, the HFEA also published a short statement<\/a> about add on treatments, which once again emphasised that fertility patients \u2018deserve consistent, evidence based treatment\u2019 <\/em>and reiterated their concern \u2018that too many patients are being offered unproven treatment add-ons.<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n

Patient information, evidence and hope<\/strong><\/p>\n

The HFEA plays a central role in shaping the regulatory framework around fertility treatment by emphasising the importance of unbiased, clear information; however the Panorama documentary touched on an important difficulty in the debate around add ons, which is the disconnect between a commitment to evidence in a fast-moving medical field and the fact that patients are drawn to the promise of hope in navigating their treatment options. While Panorama highlighted that hope is not a good enough justification for using treatments that are unproven, from a patients’ perspective the offering of hope may have extremely powerful appeal. As one IVF patient explains at the end of the documentary: \u2018with all these add on treatments, it kept us going that there is still hope.<\/em>\u2019 Fertility author Jessica Hepburn has also written very poignantly about her desire to \u2018try anything\u2019 \u2013 regardless of whether it is evidence based \u2013 during her eleven attempted IVF cycles.<\/p>\n

The conventional notions of patient information and ‘informed choice’ are important but do not fully recognise all the other factors that impact on how people feel about their treatment options and how they weigh up the perceived harms versus potential benefits. Hope, for instance, is a very central emotion and strategy that plays into patient experiences of IVF as well as their treatment decision-making. The importance of having hope\u00a0makes a lot of sense given that patients are undertaking a procedure that has,\u00a0according to the HFEA<\/a>, a less than 30% success rate. Our interviews with IVF patients in this project are still ongoing, yet there are already narratives emerging from the interview material that offer some initial insight into the complex nature of making decisions in a context where consequences and outcomes are, at least partially, unknown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since the start of the \u2018Remaking the Human Body\u2019 project there have been some significant developments in debates around the state of fertility treatment in the UK. Just over two years ago, BBC Panorama presented a documentary entitled Inside Britain\u2019s Fertility Business\u00a0(28 November 2016) that questioned the quality of scientific evidence to support \u2018add on\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[22],"tags":[20,19,5],"class_list":["post-225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-topical","tag-reproductive-technology","tag-research","tag-time-lapse"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9YI6o-3D","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":530,"url":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=530","url_meta":{"origin":225,"position":0},"title":"Event report: The question of add-ons and evidence","date":"30th November 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"On November 9th we had the pleasure to host another stimulating workshop, organised in cooperation with the Progress Educational Trust. For this online workshop we invited health professionals, researchers and fertility patient advocates to discuss the topics of evidence production and fertility treatment add-ons. This workshop was the third in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":681,"url":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=681","url_meta":{"origin":225,"position":1},"title":"New publication!","date":"14th November 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"A new publication is out entitled Patient informed choice in the age of evidence-based medicine: IVF patients\u2019 approaches to biomedical evidence and fertility treatment add-ons. It is open access and available online in the journal Sociology of Health & Illness. In the article, we challenge the view of IVF patients\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":639,"url":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=639","url_meta":{"origin":225,"position":2},"title":"Open event: A global perspective on fertility treatment add-ons","date":"19th January 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"We invite you to a free online event organised in collaboration with the Progress Educational Trust. Some of our findings from the Remaking the Human Body project will be presented at this event. Title: Adding up what we know: A global perspective on fertility treatment add-ons Date: 26 January 2022,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Final-event-for-blog.jpg.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":649,"url":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=649","url_meta":{"origin":225,"position":3},"title":"Final public engagement event report: Panel on IVF add-ons","date":"1st February 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The final part of our public engagement event series took place on 26 January. This event was organised by the Progress Educational Trust (PET) and chaired by Sarah Norcross, who has been involved in several other of our public engagement activities. PET has a substantial track record of engaging in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":428,"url":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=428","url_meta":{"origin":225,"position":4},"title":"Workshop with IVF professionals","date":"10th August 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"As part of our public engagement programme, we had the pleasure to host an extremely fascinating event 'Time-lapse Imaging and the Debate on Evidence: A Social Science Perspective', which we organised with the Progress Educational Trust (PET). For this event, we invited professionals involved in various aspects of IVF treatment\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":328,"url":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/?p=328","url_meta":{"origin":225,"position":5},"title":"IVF babble online fertility expo","date":"20th July 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"With the closure or limited opening of fertility clinics due to the pandemic, fertility patients have had much fewer opportunities to connect with professionals through open days or fertility fairs, which prompted the magazine IVF babble to organise a live online Fertility Expo. I attended the event on 19 July\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Conferences"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Fertility-expo.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303,"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions\/303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remakingthehumanbody.sbm.qmul.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}