i-Port: bidding farewell to injections during ovarian stimulation
At Instituto Bernabeu, we are bidding farewell to ovarian stimulation injections during courses of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment. The clinic is launching an innovative device called i-Port Advance™ for self-administration of drugs using a system that is already used by diabetics and which is being put to gynaecological use. By using this device, Instituto Bernabeu is revolutionising the future of assisted reproduction and making administration of injectable drugs easier. In short, it takes the stress out of having to have one, or sometimes more than one, daily injection.
On top of the emotional stress involved in trying to have children, women who undergo fertility treatment also need to self-administer drugs that prepare their bodies for pregnancy. Studies reveal that using injectable drugs is one of the main causes of stress amongst patients undergoing assisted reproduction treatment. 23% of women said that this worried them quite considerably. This is something that we come across at Instituto Bernabeu on a daily basis where many patients mention their fear of the injections that they will have to give themselves during ovarian stimulation.
Stimulation generally lasts around ten days and sometimes more than one injection per day is necessary. Instituto Bernabeu put some thought into how to eliminate this discomfort and the idea of using an innovative device used by diabetics and known as i-Port came up. Thanks to this device that is positioned on the abdomen, the number of injections required in a course of stimulation decrease to three using a patch that inserts a thin cannula into the skin tissue with a gentle push. This is the inlet through which the drugs are administered without the need for an injection. The women who use it say that all they notice is a little pressure.
Effectiveness guaranteed
Instituto Bernabeu gave a group of patients the chance to check its efficacy. The tests carried out for gynaecological use provided satisfactory results since all the patients then chose to use the device in order to administer the medication.
“At Instituto Bernabeu, we are pioneers in the use of a device that means that women avoid having to give themselves the necessary injections in assisted reproduction treatment. Many of our patients are afraid of needles and they tell us so when they come to the clinic. They have been asking us for a long time if there is a means of avoiding the injections and now we’ve achieved it”, explains Dr Rafael Bernabeu, Medical Director of the clinic that is a pioneer in gynaecological use of the device. The clinic is happy to have found an answer to the requests that patients have been making for a long time.
This line of work has been selected for an oral presentation to be given by Jaime Guerrero, an Instituto Bernabeu embryologist, at the ESHRE (European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology) congress in Geneva.
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