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History of IVI

Instituto Valenciano de Infertilidad (IVI) was created in 1990 as the first medical institution in Spain specialising exclusively in Human Reproduction. Since then, it has helped over 15,000 children be born thanks to the application of the latest assisted reproduction techniques.

This was possible thanks to a multidisciplinary team of around six hundred professionals highly specialised in Gynaecology, Obstetrics, Genetics, Biology, Andrology, surgery, Materno-foetal medicine, Anaesthesia, etc. The IVI team is currently a point of reference on a national and international scale thanks to its result rate in the clinical field and IVI is visited on a daily basis by couples from Spain and the world over, including Hong-Kong, Australia, Germany, Turkey, Algeria, South America, the US, Greece, Denmark, the United Kingdom, France, Portugal, Canada, Morocco, Egypt, Switzerland, etc.

Furthermore, IVI has always been aware of the need to invest in research and development, and thus created the IVI FOUNDATION for the Study of Human Reproduction. This teaching and research organisation also benefits our patients, as it provides ongoing training to professionals and takes part in congresses and scientific meetings all over the world.

IVI currently has centres in Alicante, Almería, Barcelona, Bilbao, Castellón, Madrid, Murcia, Seville, Valencia, Vigo, Lisbon, Mexico and Santiago de Chile.

We start with a thorough investigation, including analyses, diagnosis, definition and application of treatment and assessment of the outcome, together with constant monitoring to shed light on other therapeutic options, should the treatment need to be changed or repeated in the same cycle. We use state-of-the-art technology for each technique to be as successful as possible.

The different IVI centres apply treatments such as artificial insemination, in vitro fertilisation (IVF), ovocyte donation, intracytoplasmatic sperm injection (ICSI), sperm washing and pre-implantation diagnosis. They have the best pregnancy rates in Europe , with 9 out of every 10 couples visiting IVI because of infertility problems achieving pregnancy. Techniques such as ovocyte donation, in vitro fertilisation or sperm microinjection provide an accumulated pregnancy rate of more than 90% in four consecutive attempts. Furthermore, at IVI couples can find all kinds of diagnostic and therapeutic techniques such as endoscopic surgery, prenatal diagnosis, early diagnosis of genital cancer or decisive psychological support.

The services provided by IVI are being constantly adapted to patients' needs. We currently provide a much wider service and also cover paediatrics and comprehensive healthcare for women and men.

Clinical achievements

In 1996, thanks to IVI, the first children whose conception was achieved with frozen sperm from their own father's testicular tissue were born. This simplified the way in which we treat males with severe seminal conditions and provided the scientific community with evidence which has been broadly disseminated.

In 1997, IVI developed its own embryo-growing technique: the growth of embryos in vitro with material cells, obtaining better embryo quality and a higher pregnancy rate in sterility treatments. Embryonic co-culture was a complete scientific success and, in view of its technical complexity, it is only systematically applied in IVI centres. The same applies to women needing donated ovules. IVI was the first group in the world to publish the results of ovule donation and discover a series of innovative forms of treatment.

1999: IVI published the first data classifying the reasons why many couples repeatedly miscarriage in the scientific literature. Embryonic anomalies are the reason for these miscarriages, so IVI has developed a treatment system in which embryos are chromosomally analysed before being implanted in the mother, solving these problems. This same chromosomal study technique applied to embryos developed in vitro through biopsy, enables us to diagnose the existence of diseases and rule out the implantation of embryos which are deficient or have chromosomal defects. In other words, even before implantation, IVI professionals know whether an embryo will suffer from a given disease or cancer.

Thanks to Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis, in 2002 and for the first time in Spain , IVI enabled the birth of a healthy baby to parents who are carriers of cystic fibrosis. This achievement was repeated in 2003: for the first time, IVI diagnosed type I spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) in the embryos of a couple who carry the condition, also known as Werdning-Hoffman's disease.
In 2003, IVI was also of key importance in the birth of the first healthy daughter to a couple in which the male was infected with HIV and the female was not. The girl was born healthy, like her mother, who underwent assisted reproduction treatment (in vitro fertilisation) after the father's sperm was washed.

In 2004, Prof. Carlos Simón, the director of the IVI Foundation, and his team of investigators, enabled the derivation of the first two cell lines in Spain , which were given the names of VAL1 and VAL2. In the Professor's own words, “the discovery and use of the cell life contained in the human embryo to obtain embryonic stem cells is one of the most important breakthroughs for the medicine of the future”.

Recently, in January, 2006 and for the first time in the world, IVI used pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to enable a couple carrying lymphohistiocytosis (a life-threatening and usually fatal disease affecting the immune system) to give birth to a child who will not develop the disease.

Research and teaching activity

IVI Group currently represents the greatest research and teaching activity rate in Spain , with the publication of over 500 scientific papers in international journals and over 50 courses per year available in relation to reproduction techniques, including Laboratory, Gynaecology, Investigation, Surgery, Paediatrics, Psychology, Nursing, etc. We also organise Master's degree courses.

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