A screening technique can double the chance of IVF success, giving hope to tens of thousands of women struggling to have children, say experts.
Doctors at an annual US fertility meeting heard for the second year running of the merits of a test that screens embryos for genetic faults.
So far more than 20 babies have been born using the technique.
The UK researchers say they are now able to back the method with "great confidence".
They hope it will eventually be available to all. Currently, it is offered in a few private UK clinics.
Doctors believe the £2,000 test, called comparative genomic hybridisation or CGH, will be particularly useful to older women, whose embryos have a greater risk of carrying genetic errors that cause conditions like Down's syndrome.
The screening checks chromosomes in the developing embryo when it is a few days old, meaning only those embryos with the best chance of success are used in fertility treatment.
Dr Dagan Wells from Oxford University, who led the study, described the latest results on 115 women - six times as many as last year - as "astonishing".
The results are particularly impressive as many of the women were on their "last chance" at IVF - they were typically aged 39 with two failed IVF cycles behind them. Read more....
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