OVOCITE CRYOPRESERVATION
Semen cryopreservation has been a common practice in IVF centres since the mid 80´s. Thanks to the effectiveness of this technique, many men have been able to preserve their fertility in an easy and safe way.
However, the ovocites cryopreservation, due to its higher complexity and lower effectiveness had not been possible to do up until now, only as an experimental technique.
In the last few years, with the improvement of the new cryopreservation techniques, specially vitrification, we had to reconsider these concepts. At this time, we could expect a survival rate of over 80% (the majority of the frozen ovocites survive when we defrost them) therefore we have past from an experimental field to an effective technique to preserve their fertile potential. The frozen ovocites that survive to the defrosting procedure, have a similar behaviour to those not frozen, that is, they can be fertilized by the spermatozoid, and they have the same opportunities to produce embryos capable of implanting and therefore to develop healthy children.
At the same time, in the last few years the number of women interested in preserving their fertility for a later time has been ncreasing.
It is well known that actual treatments for cancer have a higher and higher effectiveness.
However, we also know that in most cases those chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments produce a definitive infertility when carried out on women on their fertile age. Therefore, when the diagnosis is done, the chances of survival are quite high and that makes it necessary to think about the future capacity of having children. On these patients, the cryopreservation is, in most cases, the first choice technique.
But this is not the only case when ovocites cryopreservation is indicated. Social and working circumstances make women delay more and more the time of having moreover, fertility in women becomes harder and harder with age. From the age of 35, the fertile capacity gets reduce and goes even faster from the age of 40, being null from the age of 45. There are many women reaching this age range that are not thinking of the possibility of having children in the short term. Many of those women do not have a partner at that time and in other cases the financial or working circumstances are not the right ones to face up maternity.
For all those groups of women, ovocites cryopreservation is a way of preserving a real possibility of being a mother at the right time when it would be possible for them to go ahead with the pregnancy and the care of a future child.
Collection procedure
To be able to cryopreserve ovocites, we should go through to a similar treatment of an In Vitro Fertilization. In the last few years we have simplify the steps needed to collect the ovocites.
As a previous step, we do have a briefing with the patient to go through all the issues before we begin the treatment. We analyze all the information and we assess individually the possibilities of success that mainly depend of the age of the patient and the condition of the ovaries. The prognosis will be better if the woman is under 35 years old, when the ovaries have not been through surgery and when the ovaries don’t suffer from endometriosis. Nevertheless, each case has to be asses individually before making a decision.
The procedure to program the treatment consists, in most cases, in a single visit, and the check ups to do are nothing more than an ultrasound scan and a blood test.
The collection technique is very simple. It is done through a vaginal ultrasound scan, general anaesthetic is not needed and it doesn’t take more than 10 minutes. During the collection of the ovocites, a mild anaesthetic is given to the patient to avoid any kind of discomfort. Once the procedure is finished the recovery is quite fast, so most of the patients are able to leave the clinic after one or two hours.
Previous to the collection, an ovaric stimulation needs to be done to be able to obtain the right number of ovocites. During the stimulation stage, a periodical assessment of the response to the treatment is done, so it could be cancelled if there are any reasonable doubts about the quality or quantity of the ovocites to be obtained. Once the ovaric stimulation has started, the treatment will be completed in about 7 to 10 days.
Once the ovocites have been obtained, they are analyzed by our team of embryologists. In most cases there is no doubt about the suitability for the cryopreservation so the patient can be informed about the number obtained and at that time all the procedures have concluded. On extreme situations, when the probability of success are not what we expected, a decision about to keeping them or not is taken along with the patient.
Once all the procedures have finished, the ovocites are kept in our bank for the patient disposal for an indefinite time (at the moment 50 years old is the limit age consider to use them). In the case that the woman decides not to use her ovocites, those could be donated to another woman or simply destroyed in accordance with the patient demand.
When the woman decides to use her cryopreserved ovocites, the procedures to follow are even easier. After the ovocites are defrosted, they get exposed to the couple’s spermatozoids and the embryos obtained are transferred to the woman uterus through a procedure as simple as a gynaecological check up.
At present, we see how a great number of women come to our clinics looking to become pregnant with ages in which fertility is very low and in most cases null. This is not anecdotal, one in three IVF treatments we have to use ovocites from a donor, bearing the emotional consequences to accept the use of a donor. In a very near future, most of these patients will be able to have their own biological children, cryopreserving their own ovocites.
© Instituto Bernabeu | Alicante | Elche | Cartagena | Benidorm | +34 902 30 20 40 | | Legal notice
Desarrollado por Tres Tristes Tigres