Question
asked Her Majesty's Government:Further to the Written Answers by Lord Darzi of Denham on 22 October (WA 78–9), why it was stated that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) does not hold data on the numbers of in vitro fertilisation patients who have produced 20 or more eggs when an HFEA research inspection report for research licences R0152 and R0145 states that a 29 year-old woman produced 44 eggs after superovulatory hormonal treatment, and another woman had 29 eggs collected in order to obtain 23 embryos for research.
Answer
I refer the noble Lord to the Written Answer given on Wednesday 5 December 2007, (Official Report, col. WA 195-6), which stated that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) does receive information on the number of eggs collected from a patient during a treatment cycle. However, the specific information he requested in his earlier question, on the frequency of more than 20 eggs being collected in a single treatment cycle, is not routinely collected by the HFEA. As stated in the earlier answer, the 7th edition of the HFEA's code of practice, which came into effect on 5 July 2007, requires any occurrence that is inconsistent with routine patient care to be reported to the authority. HFEA expects an incident report from a licensed clinic whenever the clinic is made aware of a case of severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome resulting in prolonged hospitalisation.