Faculty Bibliography

OBJECTIVE: To better understand women's beliefs, priorities, and attitudes toward oocyte cryopreservation, to appreciate the extent of their reproductive education, and to track the reproductive paths of women who chose to undergo oocyte cryopreservation treatment. DESIGN: An anonymous 30-question survey. SETTING: Not applicable. PATIENT(S): From 2005-2011, 478 women completed >/=1 oocyte cryopreservation treatment cycle at our center to defer reproduction. INTERVENTION(S): None. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Demographics, motivations, desires, fertility knowledge, and outcomes related to oocyte cryopreservation. RESULT(S): A total of 183 patients (38%) completed the survey with >80% being aged >/=35 years; white; having no partner at time of oocyte cryopreservation; undergoing oocyte cryopreservation after an optimal reproductive age; feeling they had improved their reproductive future after oocyte cryopreservation and being empowered by the process; aware of age-related infertility; sensing popular media falsely portrayed the upper age limit for natural conception; and recorded lack of partner as the primary rationale for not yet starting a family. Nineteen percent of respondents added that workplace inflexibility contributed to their reproductive dilemma. Half stated they learned about oocyte cryopreservation from a friend; others became aware through a medical provider, the media, and the internet. Most patients (93%) have not yet returned to use their frozen oocytes; 11 stated they had. Overall, 20% reported a successful conception after oocyte cryopreservation. CONCLUSION(S): Surveying oocyte cryopreservation patients provides a glimpse into the knowledge base and motivations surrounding current female reproductive practices. Oocyte cryopreservation technology may prove to bridge the gap between reproductive prime and when a woman is realistically "ready" to have children.

Our objective is to describe a successful live birth from oocyte vitrification followed by thaw, fertilization, blastocyst culture, trophectoderm biopsy, vitrification, and subsequent thaw. Fifteen mature oocytes were frozen from a patient with uterine factor infertility. Thirteen oocytes survived the thaw, and five underwent trophectoderm biopsy and were refrozen. Three euploid embryos were obtained. A single euploid embryo was transferred in the second thaw cycle to a known recipient leading to the delivery of a normal male infant. This case report is proof of the concept that preimplantation screening and diagnosis is an option for fertility preservation patients.

OBJECTIVE: To compare cycle and clinical outcomes between natural or medicated FET cycles. DESIGN: Retrospective study in an academic institution. MATERIALS AND METHODS: There were 1177 FET cycles from 2005- 2012. FET included embryos created from autologous or donor oocytes. Embryo transfers from oocyte thaws were excluded. Groups were analyzed for % donor cycles, % vitrification, % preimplantation genetic diagnosis/ screening (PGD), number of monitoring days, embryos transferred (ET), embryos thawed, day of embryo transfer, maximal endometrial (EM) thickness before transfer, peak estradiol (E2) and progesterone (P4) in follicular cycle, clinical pregnancy rate (CPR), spontaneous abortion rate (SABR) and ongoing/live birth rate (OP/LBR). CPR was defined by fetal cardiac activity on 1st-trimester ultrasound. SABR was calculated per pregnancy with a sac. T-tests were performed with p<0.05. RESULTS: Subset analysis was performed excluding PGD cycles, confirming no difference between natural and medicated cycles except for days of monitoring, peak E2 and peak P4. CONCLUSION: There can be advantages to both natural FET (lack of medication costs and injections) and medicated cycles (flexibility). Natural and medicated FET are equally effective in terms of pregnancy outcomes and should be offered based on patient preference and suitability (Table Presented)

PURPOSE: The objective of our study was to determine if trophectoderm biopsy, vitrification, array-comparative genomic hybridization and single thawed euploid embryo transfer (STEET) can reduce multiple gestations and yield high pregnancy and low miscarriage rates. METHODS: We performed a retrospective observational study comparing single thawed euploid embryo to routine age matched in vitro fertilization (IVF) patients that underwent blastocyst transfer from 2008 to 2011 and to our best prognosis group donor oocyte recipients (Donor). Our main outcome measures were implantation rate, clinical pregnancy rate, spontaneous abortion rate and multiple gestation rate. RESULTS: The STEET group had a significantly higher implantation rate (58 %, 53/91) than the routine IVF group (39 %, 237/613) while the Donor group (57 %, 387/684) had a similar implantation rate. The clinical pregnancy rates were not statistically different between the STEET and IVF groups. However, the multiple gestation rate was significantly lower in the STEET group (STEET 2 % versus IVF 34 %, Donor 47 %). CONCLUSIONS: STEET results in a high pregnancy rate, low multiple gestation rate and miscarriage rates. Despite the older age of STEET patients and transfer of twice as many embryos, the implantation rate for STEET was indistinguishable from that for egg donation. STEET offers an improvement to IVF, lowering risks without compromising pregnancy rate.

OBJECTIVE: To determine any beneficial effects of preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) of all chromosomes by array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH), with either day 3 or blastocyst biopsy, for idiopathic recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) patients compared with their expected loss rate. DESIGN: Case series report. SETTING: Multiple fertility centers. PATIENT(S): A total of 287 cycles of couples with idiopathic RPL (defined as two or more losses). INTERVENTION(S): PGS was done with day 3 biopsy (n = 193) or blastocyst biopsy (n = 94), followed by analysis with aCGH. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Spontaneous abortion rate, euploidy rate. RESULT(S): A total of 2,282 embryos were analyzed, of which 35% were euploid and 60% were aneuploid. There were 181 embryo transfer cycles, of which 100 (55%) became pregnant with an implantation rate of 45% (136 sacs/299 replaced embryos) and 94 pregnancies (92%) were ongoing (past second trimester) or delivered. The miscarriage rate was found to be only 6.9% (7/102), compared with the expected rate of 33.5% in an RPL control population and 23.7% in an infertile control population. CONCLUSION(S): Current PGS results with aCGH indicate a significant decrease in the miscarriage rate of idiopathic RPL patients and high pregnancy rates. Furthermore, this suggests that idiopathic recurrent miscarriage is mostly caused by chromosomal abnormalities in embryos.