Six Live Births From Frozen Eggs

03.03.2011

The Center for Advanced Reproductive Services at the UConn Health Center recently announced that it has achieved six live births resulting from frozen eggs, including a set of twins.

The CARS conducted a study examining the effectiveness of using frozen eggs, as opposed to frozen embryos, on achieving pregnancies and births. They found positive results, with previous data demonstrating a 53.8 percent pregnancy rate and a 46.1 percent birth rate.

Across the nation, egg freezing is considered experimental by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, but the UCHC will begin offering it this summer after experiencing positive results.

It is estimated that almost 900 births have occurred worldwide from egg freezing, with about 600 of them within the past three years.

The goal of the Center for Advanced Reproductive Services is to "achieve term pregnancies at rates equivalent to those obtained with fresh oocytes," said Linda Siano, chief embryologist at UCHC.

Patients who participated in the study had some of their eggs frozen in a cryoprotective solution. The eggs were then thawed and fertilized through intracytoplasmic sperm injection.

"The Cryotop method of vitrification, which we aim to investigate in our study, has been reported as the most efficient method for human oocytes cryopreservation," Siano said.

The benefits of egg freezing are numerous, including being more ethical, enabling women to preserve their fertility and enabling the possible future creation of egg banks, similar to sperm banks.

Egg freezing is especially beneficial when couples have to make hard decisions about the fate of the excess frozen embryos when undergoing fertility treatments.

"Decision-making about the fate of these embryos can be a very emotional and traumatic experience for couples using in vitro fertilization," said Theodore Taigen, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UConn.

"The mean birth weight and the incidence of congenital ano

malies are comparable to that of spontaneous conceptions in fertile women or infertile women undergoing IVF treatment," Siano said.

"Oocyte cryopreservation is gaining in popularity as an option for infertility treatment as well as fertility preservation," she added.

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