Artificial intelligence is transforming IVF treatment, but will it actually lead to more babies being born?

One in six people will experience infertility in their lifetime, according to a recent report by the WHO. It says people end up in a medical poverty trap and that solutions for preventing, diagnosing and treating infertility – including IVF – are underfunded and still out of reach to so many because of “a persistent lack of data.”

Up until recently there was very little use of data to influence outcomes. But that’s changing. “Artificial intelligence can look at vast amounts of data and analyse it in a way that human beings cannot, which is gradually going to revolutionise IVF treatment” says Dr Amit Shah, a consultant in reproductive medicine with Fertility Plus on Harley Street. “Time is one of the biggest obstacles when doing IVF as outcomes are age-dependent, and people find themselves in the dark seeking a diagnosis for years. But machine learning could be used to identify patterns and risks associated with infertility, resulting in more accurate and early diagnosis. AI-powered image analysis could also help doctors detect subtle abnormalities in ultrasound scans, in some cases, reducing the need for invasive procedures.”

Dr Shah believes that AI also has the potential to improve the quality of care provided as it will do the heavy lifting for consultants leaving space to focus on patient needs. “Patients are often given a generic plan. With artificial intelligence, treatment could become more personalised with improved patient monitoring throughout the process and more tailored recommendations for lifestyle and medication,” says Dr Shah.

Hyper personalised care could also help to make IVF treatment more environmentally friendly. Anyone who has done IVF will know about the sheer volume of medications that are prescribed. So much of it never gets used leaving hundreds of pounds worth of meds sitting in a box or in the fridge. So there is an opportunity to reduce waste and costs with tailored plans and very specific doses of medication.

In addition to giving a more bespoke treatment plan, selecting the best embryos is another way that AI could improve outcomes in IVF treatment. This is already happening at the Centre for Reproductive Health (CRGH) in London – one of the first UK clinics to introduce AI into how it works. Their team of embryologists have been using an artificial intelligence tool called CHLOE as part of the treatment they provide. “CHLOE collects millions of data points for each embryo and analyses things that we couldn’t possibly gather manually. For the embryologist, it makes things a lot easier, because it automatically tells us whether the embryo has normally fertilised or not,” explained Suzanne Cawood, director of embryology at CRGH in an interview with FemTech World. “Of course, we go and double check all of that to make sure that we agree with it, but overall, it saves us time and makes everything a lot more efficient.”

CHLOE was built by Fairtility, an Israeli tech startup which prides itself on bringing more transparency into the fertility sector. Eran Eshed, Fairtility’s founder and CEO says that CHLOE is improving the experience for patients because it helps doctors to make better decisions by scoring embryos in a standardised way so the best one can be selected for an embryo transfer. And it gives embryologists additional context about how an embryo formed as it can analyse time lapse videos cell by cell. “The doctors that are considered to have the best bedside manner are not necessarily the ones with better outcomes. When there is a failed embryo transfer, for example, CHLOE allows the physician to explain why something didn’t work, bringing additional transparency into the process.” adds Eshed.