Posts Tagged ‘egg freezing’

Egg freezing is accepted as preventing disease and age-related fertility decline…in Israel

Sunday, August 28th, 2011

According to an article in the August 2011 issue of Fertility & Sterility, the Israel National Bioethics Council (INBC) issued recommendations permitting egg freezing to prevent both disease and age-related decline in fertility. The INBC considers age-related infertility a medical problem and treats the new technology favorably as preventive medicine. As a comparison, the major regulatory bodies in Europe and the U. S. consider the procedure experimental for fertility preservation unless for a medical reason such as cancer treatment. Treating this as preventive medicine allows women to avoid the need for egg donation and ineffective infertility treatments at an advanced age.

Two recent studies demonstrated that the risk of congenital anomalies is similar to natural conception as well as conception from IVF cycles. But since the technology is so new, there are no long-term data concerning the health or emotional well-being of children conceived from frozen eggs.

I believe that the Israelis are way ahead of other western countries in accepting this technology and that it will ultimately be accepted in Europe and the U. S. as more experience is gained. At Reproductive Partners we have seen that this is an effective technique to preserve fertility for both medical and social reasons.

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Fertility preservation for cancer patients by egg freezing

Monday, July 25th, 2011

Until recently there were no good options for preserving a woman's fertility when she had to go through cancer treatments which could potentially destroy her ferrtility. In the past several years egg freezing has become a viable option. The question that had not been answered was if the cancer itself was likely to have altered their fertility even before cancer treatments such as radiation and chemotherapy.

Now a study in the July 2011 issue of the medical journal, Fertility & Sterility, provides reassurance that on an age-related basis, cancer sufferers' fertility potential is not different than women going through IVF for male factor infertility. The author found no difference in ovarian reserve, response to fertility drugs, numbers of eggs retrieved and egg maturity between the two groups. These parameters remain unaltered by the neoplastic process. This is in contrast to the impairment of spermatogenesis before therapy in men with cancer,

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The future of egg donation-egg banks

Sunday, January 30th, 2011

This is one of a series of news items from abstracts of studies presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine as complied by Dr. David Meldrum, Scientific Director of Reproductive Partners. We appreciate the enormous amount of work it takes to compile and comment on these abstracts.

 whanEgg donation has been a clinical for over twenty years and has been done using eggs from a donor in a fresh IVF cycle. In the future a new method of freezing, vitrification, may make it possible to create frozen egg banks. This would allow the process to become more efficient, dividing one donor's eggs between multiple recipients.

In a poster presentation at the ASRM meeting the outcome with 90 cycles of vitrified donor eggs was compared to 112 fresh donor cycles. Term delivery occurred in 73 versus 65%. There was no statistical difference in delivery rate or mean delivery weight of the offspring. The outcome with cryotop vitrification of donor eggs appears to be as good as with fresh donor oocytes. Egg banking could make egg donation less expensive by making better use of all donor eggs, many of which are now discarded after a couple is successful.

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AMH, anti-mullerian hormone test may have increasing role

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

This is one of a series of news items from abstracts of studies presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine as complied by Dr. David Meldrum, Scientific Director of Reproductive Partners. We appreciate the enormous amount of work it takes to compile and comment on these abstracts.

 whanAMH, anti-mullerian hormone fertility testing may have an increasing role based on two poster presentations at the Annual Meeting.

In one study, the success rate of IVF was reduced by about one third in women with an AMH less than1 ng/ml but even in women with levels less than 0.1 ng/ml, 5 pregnancies were observed. Low or undetectable AMH may prompt the use of additional measures to try to improve response, but it should not in itself exclude a patient from trying IVF.

In a second study, over 15,000 serum levels for AMH  were examined relative to age. AMH was highly correlated with age. In the future nomograms will be available for patients to assess their ovarian age relative to their chronological age to make informed decisions regarding egg freezing for fertility preservation. This reason for doing IVF is expected to grow over the years and AMH determinations can be expected to be a driving force.

 

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Dr. Wisot not quoted in US Weekly

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

RPMG's Dr. Arthur Wisot was interviewed for a story in the August 9th issue of US Weekly, "Baby after Cancer." The story chronicled Christina Applegate's journey from breast cancer through bilateral mastectomy to now being pregnant.

Dr. Wisot was interviewed about the dangers of pregnancy after breast cancer, an aspect of the story they completely ignored in the article. The most important point he made to them was the option now for women to preserve their fertility using egg freezing prior to starting chemotherapy, an aspect of the story they also ignored. According to the story Christina Applegate did not undergo chemotherapy or radiation so she could pregnant, instead choosing to have a bilateral mastectomy which would not affect her fertility.

Egg freezing is now a very realistic option for women choosing to delay having a family as well as women surviving cancer.

Dr. Wisot has been quoted in many media outlets including celebrity magazines such as People Magazine, US Weekly and Life & Style.

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Egg freezing is very effective in otherwise fertile women

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

The process of egg freezing by vitrification has developed as a clinical technique just in the last few years. Now a study in the March 2010 edition of the medical journal Fertility & Sterility shows that it is very effective way of preserving an otherwise fertile woman's fertility potential for the future.

Nineteen women agreed to have their eggs frozen for six months before warming, fertilization and transfer. Three hundred ninety-five eggs were warmed, of which 81.0% survived. Two hundred eighty-five eggs were microinjected for fertilization; 72.3% fertilized, and 53 embryos were transferred. Of the 20 transfers, 16 resulted in clinical pregnancy (80%), 3 miscarried (15%), and 13 (65%) went on to produce live births, respectively.

Egg freezing is an appropriate option for young women without partners who want to delay childbearing and for women needing to take medications or other treatments that can damage eggs such as chemotherapy for cancer. Reproductive Partners uses vitrification for egg freezing.

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