Posted: 2/25/2009
Innovative new fertility treatment conceived in Delaware Valley
Dr. George Taliadouros isn't concerned with any debate over who first successfully delivered a baby using cutting edge in vitro maturation (IVM). The founder and medical director of the Delaware Valley Institute of Fertility and Genetics is, however, intent on leading efforts to perfect and promote IVM.

Taliadouros recently was in Florida as the lone U.S. representative of a worldwide delegation of 12 IVM specialists who discussed the latest breakthroughs in the technology, which is a modification of the traditional in vitro fertilization (IVF). Since it was first used in England in 1978, more than 3,000,000 babies have been born with the help of IVF, an infertility treatment by which egg cells are fertilized by sperm outside of the womb. IVM is still in its infant stage, with only 1,000 successful births nationally.

"I think it’s going to take off," says Taliadouros, who founded DVIF& G, one of the leading fertility practices in Southern New Jersey and Greater Philadelphia, in 1994. "There's a learning curve and we need more scientific information. If you get a mix of people doing the procedure as leading forces, we will be successful."

Taliadouros has been practicing it since 2006, delivering the first baby born via IVM in the U.S. (although at least one doctor in Chicago also lays claim to being the first). Taliadouros is expecting his ninth IVM birth next month. IVM can have a tremendous impact, he says, because it offers patients not well-suited for IVF another option.

For a traditional IVF procedure, a patient is treated with hormones for up to two weeks. Some women suffer severe complications as a result of the hormones, so IVM begins with only three days of hormone therapy. Immature eggs are recovered and then matured outside the body, rather than in the fallopian tube.

"Some of our patients have had very bad experiences (with IVF), now they find out they have another option," says Taliadouros. "IVM can be cheaper because it’s less ultrasound, less bloodwork, and less hormones."

Source: Dr. George Taliadouros, MD, Founder and Medical Director for Delaware Valley Institute of Fertility and Genetics
Writer: Joe Petrucci