First 100 participants join study to improve IVF treatment outcomes

One hundred people have now signed up to take part in the BRIST-IVF study to help researchers at the NIHR Bristol Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) improve future outcomes for IVF treatment.

The research study, launched in September 2019, is collecting information from couples and individuals undergoing IVF and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) treatment at the Bristol Centre for Reproductive Medicine (BCRM).

Taking part involves answering a short questionnaire, having height, weight and blood pressure measured and providing blood and urine samples. This information is collected just before participants start an IVF or ICSI treatment cycle or have a frozen embryo transfer.

The information collected will be used to investigate factors associated with the success of IVF treatment. This could lead to improving the quality of information offered to fertility patients and developing interventions – either lifestyle or clinical – that could improve people’s chances of success. The longer-term impact of IVF treatment on the health of women, their partners and children will also be examined.

Lead researcher, Dr Amy Taylor, says:

“Recruiting 100 participants after only a few months is a real boost for the study. We’d like to thank everyone who is taking part.

“Ultimately, we aim to recruit up to 3,000 participants over the lifetime of the study, so it will take a few years to analyse the data and get results. But we hope these results will help us to identify, at a population-wide level, the health factors that play a part in whether, or not, IVF is successful.”