2009 has been a very good year for the egg bank at Reproductive Biology Associates. Our egg bank continues to meet and exceed our expectations for its success. As of the end of September 2009, we have banked eggs from 109 donors (average age 26.1 years). One hundred and eighty (180) cycles have been done for recipients (average age 41 years). The initial pregnancy rate currently is 71.97%. The ongoing pregnancy rate is 66%. Over half of our recipients (58.28%) also have embryos to freeze. We have had 72 women deliver 107 live born children, with no increased risk of problems when compared to naturally conceived pregnancies. The other pregnancies are ongoing. The results of our egg freezing program will be presented in greater detail by our Laboratory Director, Dr. Peter Nagy, at the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) in Atlanta this month. To our knowledge, these are the best pregnancy rates in the world from the use of frozen thawed eggs. These pregnancy rates equal the pregnancy rates in our center using fresh donor eggs, which are among the best in the country. Therefore, we believe that our current egg freezing technique does not damage the egg.

Additionally, the recent downturn in the economy has actually been very positive for the egg bank, for a variety of reasons. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of young women seeking to be egg donors this year. This has allowed us to be even more selective than we have been in the past and has allowed us to bank eggs from a large number of high quality donors. All these young women are between 21 and 30 years of age, college educated, many have or are working on advanced degrees. On average we recover 22 mature eggs per donor (only mature eggs can be frozen) which means that one donor may produce enough eggs for more than one recipient. This allows us to lower the cost for a donor egg cycle of treatment if eggs from the egg bank are used. At the moment we have approximately 1000 eggs banked for our recipients to choose from and we are continually adding to our inventory.

What all this means for women who need to use donor egg to become pregnant is that (1) we have a wide choice of excellent quality donor eggs available for use now, (2) there is no wait as there may be at many centers that offer egg donation services. And on top of that, (3) the cost to use frozen banked eggs is approximately half (sometimes less) of what it costs to do donor egg elsewhere. (4) All this comes without sacrificing the outcome (the pregnancy rates and live birth rates are as good as with fresh eggs).

Personally, I am very excited about our egg freezing technology. I believe that this technology is going to revolutionize the way women think and plan for their reproductive future. At the moment we don’t even recognize all of the potential applications for this technology, but there will be many.

Already we have preliminary data on the outcomes of egg freezing in older women than our egg donors and they are good. Of course egg freezing is not the fountain of youth, but it appears that in our hands eggs are not damaged in the freeze thaw process. That means that the pregnancy rates from these cycles are age appropriate for the age of the egg. By that I mean that if you freeze a 35 year old woman’s eggs and use them even years later, her likelihood of becoming pregnant would be the same as if she was still 35. The same applies if the eggs are frozen at age 37; the pregnancy rates would be as if she were still 37, regardless of when the eggs were used, and so on. So egg freezing seems to stop a woman’s reproductive time clock, at least for the eggs that are frozen. This opens a whole new world of possibilities for women.

We are so confident in the egg freezing technology that we have begun to offer egg freezing for fertility preservation for women 38 years of age or younger, if they have good ovarian reserve. This means that women recently diagnosed with cancer can freeze their unfertilized eggs for later use even if they do not have a partner. Women who haven’t chosen a partner yet, or are not ready to have a child at the present, for whatever reason (career-related or for economic reasons, etc.) and who feel their reproductive clock ticking can stop that clock by freezing eggs for potential later use. Egg freezing can take the pressure off a woman so she is free to make the best choice for her, without worrying about declining pregnancy rates with advancing maternal age. Of course freezing eggs is no guarantee of future success, but I tell women to look on the process of egg freezing, if they choose to do it, as an insurance policy. They may never need it because they may find the perfect partner and conceive on their own at the right time. But if she doesn’t find the right partner or situation until later in life, she still has a good chance of success. When a woman’s family is complete, she can always have her unused eggs discarded.

These are just a few of the possible applications of egg freezing technology, but these uses of egg freezing are available to you now, not some time in the distant future. I hope that women will be proactive, learn about these new technologies, and if they might be helpful to them, then investigate further. The future is now!