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26 June 2001

To:  All Persons Responsible

 

 Dear Colleague,

Request for information regarding media used in IVF

The HFEA and the Department of Health are undertaking an information gathering exercise, and are writing to all IVF and DI centres in the UK requesting information about the culture media, freezing media and additives currently used in fertility treatment and also media that has been used in the past. This is part of a risk-assessment exercise concerning the risk of infection with transmissible agents through fertility treatment.

I would be much obliged if an appropriate member of staff at your clinic could take the time to consider the following questions regarding IVF and other media, and confirm the situation at your clinic.

Media currently in use

1. What media is currently being used at your clinic, including culture, flushing, freeze/thaw and micromanipulation media?
2. Who is this supplied by?
3. Is this media supplied specifically for clinical use in fertility treatment? If not, what grade of media is used?
4. Do you supplement any commercial media before use? If so, what supplements are added and what is the source of each of these supplements?
5. How do you ensure that these media and supplements are free of transmissible agents of any kind?

Media used in the past

6. What media have been used previously at your centre? On what approximate dates did the media used change?
7. Please indicate any substances not specifically marketed for clinical use in fertility treatment, the source of these substances and the approximate dates between which they were used in treatment.
8. Approximately how many embryos remain in storage from the period when these substances were used?

Specific constituents

9. Please comment, as appropriate, on any past and present use in treatment of the following specific materials, including any sources from which they were obtained, dates between which they may have been used, and potential transmission risk:

Heparin
Platelet Activating Factor
Insulin                                    
Transferrin
Percoll
Enzymes such as trypsin and chymotrypsin
Bovine Serum Albumin
Hyaluronidase
Foetal Calf Serum
a, ß and 0 globulin
Whole Human Serum
Human Serum Albumin
Calmodulin

If you consider that there are additional issues that we should be considering in relation to transmission risk in fertility treatment, I would be extremely grateful if you could forward details to the HFEA. We appreciate that for media used historically in particular, this may entail a certain amount of work. We would therefore be grateful if information on media currently in use could be forwarded to us by 9th July 2001 and details of the historic situation could be forwarded by 31st August 2001.

Jo Rippington will be co-ordinating this work and can be contacted at the above address, on 020-7539-3328 or at jo.rippington@,hfea.gov.uk. Responses could alternatively be faxed to us on 020-7377-1871.

Thank you very much for your assistance in this matter. I look forward to hearing from you shortly.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Maureen Dalziel
Chief Executive

Page last updated: 24 August 2012

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