Antonio Pellicer, pioneer of reproductive medicine: “When I meet a couple who want a son and she is more than 45 years old, the first speech I do is always on the complications of the pregnancy related to age”

TO EShre 2025, the Congress of the European Society of Human Reproduction of Embriologywho has been held in Paris in these days, Professor Antonio Pellicer It is at home. In addition to being a member of this and other international medical companies, his studies have contributed significantly to the research and development of reproductive medicine worldwide. In 40 years of career, he was the owner of the chair of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Valencia, as well as dean of the Faculty of Medicine, he was also the primary of the obstetrics and gynecology department of theFe University Hospitalhas written more than 300 book chapters and more than 900 articles published in national and international magazines, presented about 600 conferences and organized more than 100 congresses. In 1990 he founded theValencian Institute of Infertility (Ibid), the first medical institution in Spain entirely specialized in human reproduction. His medical-scientific work has led to the creation of numerous clinics there both in Spain and in other countries, including Italy.

Just Rome is the place where he lives today with his family and where in recent years he has decided to invest by opening various clinics, as well as in the capitalalso a Milan, Bari and recently a Bologna. “Italy was a decision dictated by personal reasons,” he explains during our meeting in Paris. «With my wife, who is Italian, we had decided to move to Rome and we had a great time. But it is also true that we brought behind a favorable wind: for more than 15 years we had taken couples who came from Italy to Spain for medically assisted procreation paths. Do you know what is the thing that surprised me positively? That we started working in March 2021 and in just 18 months we were already one of the private clinics in the country with more activities ».
Moreover, on the front of medically assisted procreation techniques, Italy has made very important steps in the last decade: “The quality that is today is perfectly comparable to what is in Spain”, sentencing Pellicer.
The meeting is an opportunity to make a point on the Parisian congress with him, on the most striking news and on what we can expect in the field of reproductive medicine.

Professor, what is really interesting in the field of human reproduction and embryology?
«The most innovative thing, without being definitively determined, is artificial intelligence applied to the analysis of the embryos. It is not a novelty, it has been talked about for years, but today there are many realities that apply this kind of analysis to the diagnosis of the road embryo (that is, that it has the potential to develop in a healthy fetus and bring to a term pregnancy, editor’s note). What we still do not know is because an embryo subjected to genetic investigation – and which is qualified as healthy, euploid – in the best case has only 65% ​​of the possibility of implantation. It means that there are other characteristics of the human embryo who must or do not have to be present for the plant and we do not yet know which it is. So it is possible that the analysis of the monitoring data of each incubator (because all incubators are monitored H24 for 7 days a week today) gives us the key to understand which embryos have 65% of success or 35% of bankruptcy, and I think this is the point: the IA can help us solve this great unknown “.

Is there anything we should be careful in relation to the use of the AI?
«At this moment I do not see any particular risk. In my opinion, the only problem with the IA can be related to the insertion of data that are true, real, which are valid and above all that they are numerous. Because the great enemy is the analysis of a very limited number of data. If I develop my algorithm to classify an embryo as good or not good and then I pass it to the colleague who works in another structure, it will not be needed. Because the embryos will be grown in different incubators, with different culture soils and all these characteristics can ensure that, to date, the analysis of the AI ​​data is not enough to reach a correct diagnosis. But it is a matter of time. I bet that over 5 years there will be programs suitable for everyone ».

Today the age of motherhood moves more and more forward. The number of women over 50 also increases who want to have a child. Is the PMA also adapting to this request?
«In reality, I am very critical on this theme. Several years ago, in 2005, we published our experience with the ovodonation that already concerned more than 5 thousand Spanish women at the time. It was an important case and this allowed us to find out how after 45 years the complications during pregnancies were greater. It did not concern so much the possibility of success, because if the question is if it is possible to have a child at 55 years of age the answer is yes, it is possible, despite being more effort and the pregnancy rate at this age is lower. The fundamental theme is another: the health of the woman and its risk. A 48 -year -old woman who for example is hypertensive, who takes blood pressure pads, and wants to become a mother, I would put her at risk. Because I will have to use ovodonation, and one of the well -known things is that ovodonation has among its consequences to increase blood pressure. It is like putting a bomb for 9 months in the womb of a woman! Not to mention the post-parto hemorrhage: the uterus is a muscle, he has to perform a contraction, he does not do so at the same way at 40 and 48. Therefore, when I receive a couple where you are more than 45 years old, the first speech I do always concern the possible complications related to pregnancy “.

Is it important to set limits, then?
«It is important to do it first of all to protect women’s health. And then because a child gets in the desire to create a family ».

On what, on the other hand, would it certainly take a greater “opening” from his point of view, perhaps in Italy?
«I think it would be important to allow access to medically assisted procreation also to single women, as already happens in other European countries. And then that unused and currently cryoconed embryos can have an opportunity for life, perhaps through donation to other couples. I would also hope that the government made a new reflection on the theme of gestation for others (GPA), as is happening in Spain, where it is returning to discuss it. The question concerns an opening in this sense for health problems. As a doctor I faced many cases and I wonder: why a woman born without uterus or with a serious pathology that prevents her from carrying her forward cannot be entitled to pregnancy? Also to Abu Dhabiin the Arab Emirates, the GPA for strictly medical reasons has been recently regulated and made official. Let’s think about it ».