MINNEAPOLIS - In an apparent first for the state, a Minnesota woman has become pregnant from a human donor egg that was frozen and thawed before it was fertilized and implanted.
Fertility doctors used in vitro fertilization to achieve the pregnancy in the 48-year-old woman, who is just nine weeks pregnant and declined to be identified.
The woman's doctor, Dr. Jacques Stassart of Reproductive Medicine and Infertility Associates in Woodbury, said the technology is still experimental, but the clinic will offer it on a case-by-case basis. Early next year, he plans to hold educational seminars for patients and market it to cancer doctors for young women patients at risk of losing their fertility from medical treatments.
Stassart's clinic, one of five IVF clinics in Minnesota, is among an estimated 138 across the country offering egg freezing and storage. But to date, only 300 to 600 babies around the world have been born from frozen eggs. Though the technology is advancing, even the American Society for Reproductive Medicine recommends it be limited to cancer patients and research studies.
But fertility doctors, who operate largely without federal oversight or research dollars, have a history of trying new technologies on patients. In effect, the federal government "has shunted the responsibility of research onto the patient community," said Jeff Kahn, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota.
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With egg freezing, fertility clinics are once again experimenting on patients, said Dr. Marc Fritz, chairman of the practice committee for ASRM.
"What it boils down to is a clinical investigation of an experimental procedure in patients at their expense," Fritz said. "That is what the society feels is not appropriate."
The latest development comes at a time of increasing competition for IVF clinics. Baby boomers are moving past reproductive age, leaving doctors to compete over a smaller number of infertile people in Generation X.
Stassart said the clinic will follow the guidelines issued by the ASRM on properly informing patients about the procedure. "We are not going to open the front gates with a big sign that says 'We freeze eggs,'" Stassart said. "We have to be super careful about not misrepresenting this."
Dr. David Ball, the embryologist at Reproductive Medicine and Infertility Associates who developed the procedure, said that 70 percent to 80 percent of the eggs he's frozen survive the thawing process - compared to about 90 percent of frozen embryos. Based on results from other clinics around the world, about 20 percent to 25 percent of frozen and thawed eggs can result in a live birth, he said. That compares to about a 50 percent success rate with fresh eggs.
Both the ASRM and the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology say egg freezing should not be marketed to healthy women because data on outcomes are limited.
- Associated Press
