Dr Fernando Prado Ferreira, who led the study at Santa Joana Maternity Hospital in São Paulo, Brazil, believes the biopsies help embryos implant better in the womb, although why this might be so is currently unclear. In the trial of 144 women whose average age was 33, 46 IVF patients were given biopsies and 98 were not. Dr Ferreira, based at the Federal University of São Paulo, said: “Having a biopsy prior to IVF treatment almost doubled the chances of pregnancy over those who did not.”

RPMG's Scientific Director, Dr. David Meldrum attended the meeting as an editor of the journal, Fertility & Sterility, and commented on the study. "This study was suggestive of a positive effect of the biopsy on the occurrence of pregnancy, but it was not designed in such a way that a firm conclusion can be drawn. Ideally a randomized study should have been done. In a case-control study like this one, it is necessary to have some evidence that the number of patients to be studied is set when the study is started. Otherwise investigators can chose a point to terminate the study when the results favor a significant effect. This effect is consistent with a similar study from Israel, and a published study has shown that an endometrial biopsy stimulates growth factors in the endometrium. Hopefully a randomized study will be carried out with the study size set before starting the study. Then an reliable conclusion can be drawn.
 

The authors should not have used the term "scarring". The endometrium would heal without scarring following such a procedure. The authors perhaps meant "healing" and the other term was used due to their native language not being English."

We have observed this effect in our patients at RPMG, but to claim that it "doubles" the chance of an ongoing pregnancy is a stretch.