Trial aims to spare women the gruelling two-week IVF injections
For a lot of women, IVF isn’t just a medical process—it’s a grind. Melbourne GP Jilly Gallagher says the standard cycle comes with a heavy emotional and physical toll, including two weeks of hormone injections straight into her stomach.
“Each cycle, you’re having to do two weeks of injections into your stomach with hormones that make you feel very bloated and in pain,” Gallagher told US News Hub Misryoum. She described how the side effects don’t just disappear after egg collection. “You can feel emotional or irritable and the bloating continues even after they’ve collected your eggs until your next period… so it’s about a month of discomfort.”
Injections also mean bruising, recovery that disrupts daily life, and for some people, work isn’t an option. “As a GP I’m self-employed, so there’s no sick pay. Cancelling at the last minute affects my patients too,” Dr Gallagher said. It’s that reality—time, stress, and body changes—that’s behind a Victorian-first pilot study now being launched by Melbourne IVF.
Here’s the key idea: CAPA-IVM skips the traditional injecting process. Instead of maturing multiple eggs inside the body over about two weeks, immature eggs—described as “tiny” eggs—are retrieved and matured in a laboratory using an advanced culture system, known as in vitro maturation.
The pilot is six months long. According to Melbourne IVF, CAPA-IVM shortens the hormonal injections to one or two days, with egg collection potentially organised within one to four days of assessment. In traditional IVF, women use hormone injections for around two weeks to help the ovaries mature multiple eggs in a single cycle.
As Associate Professor Kate Stern, clinical director and fertility expert at Melbourne IVF, put it: “Normally it takes 10 to 13 days of hormone injections to grow a pool of eggs.” She said that can mean “gruelling hormone treatment and frequent visits to the hospital.”
The in vitro maturation approach, she said, aims to reduce the bloating and other risks tied to longer stimulation. “The idea with in vitro maturation is that you have either zero, or only one or two days of injections, so you don’t develop the bloating, increased risk of clots, and doesn’t take the time, energy, stress and trauma.”
It’s not yet claimed to be as effective as standard IVF. But Assoc Prof Stern said it could still be a meaningful option for people who struggle with hormones—especially patients who find treatment traumatic, women with polycystic ovary syndrome, and cancer patients who may not have time for conventional cycles. “As with a lot of our research for cancer fertility preservation, this has had implications and benefits for our wider fertility population,” she said. “Mainly it’s about offering different options that suit different patients, making it safer and giving our cancer patients more options.”
The method isn’t brand new in Australia. The first baby conceived through CAPA-IVM in Australia was in 2023 after the approach was used at The Royal Hospital for Women in Sydney. If the Victorian pilot confirms benefits, Assoc Prof Stern said the goal would be to integrate CAPA-IVM into broader clinical care at Melbourne IVF.
Success will be measured by the ability to develop mature eggs from the smaller eggs, whether fertilisation is possible, and patient satisfaction. Women aged between 21 to 37 are being invited to register their interest.
Honestly, the big question now is whether this “shorter, lighter” pathway can deliver outcomes that feel just as hopeful—without the month-long discomfort Gallagher described.