The field of assisted reproduction has undergone incredible growth over the last two decades. New breakthroughs in the treatment of infertility have occurred every few years, offering new hope for patients pursuing their dreams of parenthood. Most of these developments are specifically in the area of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and enhance pregnancy rates, reduce multiple births and increase the efficiency and cost effectiveness of IVF treatment.

IVF may be offered as a treatment for nearly all causes of infertility. Eggs are fertilized in the IVF lab with sperm, embryos develop and are cultured, and the embryos are then transferred into the uterus. Successful implantation of the embryo following this fertilization process in the IVF lab is an extremely important variable affecting IVF success rates. Optimal success rates usually require an average transfer of two or three embryos. It is not unusual for 8, 10 or occasionally more eggs to be retrieved and therefore more than 3 embryos may be produced in an IVF cycle if desired. With the technique of embryo cryopreservation (embryo freezing) embryos developed but not transferred can be cryopreserved and stored for future use. Patients having successful pregnancies from their “fresh” IVF cycle and patients who did not achieve successful pregnancies may use these stored cryopreserved embryos later. When this time comes, one or more of the embryos are thawed and transferred in a much less complicated “frozen embryo transfer” cycle. Patients choosing this option can minimize their time, expense and the need for repeat egg retrievals.

The IVF-Fertility Division of Women's Clinic is now offering cryopreservation and storage of embryos to those patients desiring this option. Our IVF lab is also introducing a new freezing technique called embryo vitrification. The IVF-Fertility Division of Women's Clinic is one of a limited number of laboratories nationally that uses this method of cryopreservation. Most programs around the nation use a “slow-freeze” technique, requiring multiple time-consuming steps and expensive equipment, to freeze embryos. With vitrification, the embryo is coated with a cryoprotectant and rapidly dipped in liquid nitrogen in a much shorter procedure. There is another important advantage with vitrification. With the older slow-freeze technique, water, normally found in and between embryo cells, is frozen into ice crystals. As these embryos are thawed for transfer, the crystals can cause damage which may lead to cell death. With vitrification, water is sealed out and embryos are “warmed,” potentially resulting in less damage and hopefully higher pregnancy rates. Our laboratory will be using vitrification exclusively for embryo cryopreservation.

Embryo cryopreservation allows patients and physicians the possible option of reducing multiple births by controlling the number of embryos transferred and, at the same time, maximizes the efficiency of the fresh cycle they have already gone through. It can also help reduce the chance of severe ovarian hyperstimulation (a rare but serious complication of IVF) when a transfer of “fresh” embryos in that cycle would put the patient at high risk. In this case, all of the embryos would be frozen and one or more would then be warmed and transferred to the patient at a later time.

Patients and their physicians are understandably concerned about the handling and outcome of excess, unwanted cryopreserved embryos. It is very important to our program that patients have the ability to make informed choices about their excess embryos. Our program has developed options for the handling of excess, unneeded embryos. Patients will have the ability to make choices for the handling of these embryos, and also have the opportunity to change their choices later if desired.

We are now very pleased to empower patients with the choice of two options regarding their embryos. Patients can choose the embryo cryopreservation option and take advantage of the new cryopreservation program, extending the efficiency of the fresh cycle with frozen embryo transfers. Patients can also opt, as they have from the inception of our program in 1986, to take advantage of our great success with inseminating just a limited number of eggs in a fresh cycle without embryo cryopreservation and subsequently transferring all viable, fresh embryos.

Click here for an interesting article about cryopreservation.