1986: The vaginal route
The Modern Laboratory · The Modern Papers
The Modern Papers · MP·06 · 1986
1986: The vaginal route
In Vienna, a scanner in the vagina with a needle along its side made egg collection the short procedure it is today.
The story
Peter Kemeter and Wilfried Feichtinger ran IVF from a private practice in Vienna, with the egg laboratory above a bathtub. With a new vaginal ultrasound probe and a needle guide fixed to it, they could see the follicles at close range and place the needle in the middle of each one. The woman no longer needed a full bladder or an operation.
In their first 40 egg collections they recovered 79 per cent of the eggs, and 17.5 per cent of the women had a clinical pregnancy.
Their paper sat beside Gardner and Leese's in the first issue of Human Reproduction (MP·05), and a fuller account followed in Fertility and Sterility that May. Almost every egg collected for IVF today is collected this way.
“avoids the need for a full urinary bladder, with less discomfort for the patients”From the paper's abstract
The paper
Trans-Vaginal Oocyte Retrieval Using a Trans-Vaginal Sector Scan Probe Combined with an Automated Puncture Device
Peter Kemeter, Wilfried Feichtinger
Human Reproduction 1986;1(1):21 to 24. January 1986. Read the paper.
Find it in the museum
Room 1, The egg is collected, Peter Kemeter, Wilfried Feichtinger, Pierre Dellenbach
How we know
Citation and abstract read in PubMed (PMID 3455416) on 14 October 2026. The fuller account: Feichtinger W, Kemeter P. Fertility and Sterility 1986;45(5):722 to 725 (PMID 3516731).
The IVF Museum · The Modern Papers
Compiled with AI-assisted research and checked against the original sources. Undergoing peer review. Corrections are warmly welcomed.
