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Live birth and clinical outcome of vitrification-warming donor oocyte programme: an experience of a single IVF unit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2021

Romualdo Sciorio Open the ORCID record for Romualdo Sciorio [Opens in a new window] ,
Elena Antonini  and
Bruno Engl
Romualdo Sciorio*
Affiliation:
Edinburgh Assisted Conception Programme, EFREC, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK Donna Salus Women’s Health and Fertility, Bozen, Italy
Elena Antonini
Affiliation:
Donna Salus Women’s Health and Fertility, Bozen, Italy
Bruno Engl
Affiliation:
Donna Salus Women’s Health and Fertility, Bozen, Italy
*
Author for correspondence: Romualdo Sciorio. Edinburgh Assisted Conception Programme, EFREC, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, 51 Little France Crescent, Old Dalkeith Road, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH16 4SA, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
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Summary

Medically assisted reproductive (MAR) treatments using donated oocytes are commonly applied in several countries to treat women who cannot conceive with their own gametes. Historically, in Italy, gamete donation has been prohibited but, in 2014, the law changed and gamete donation became allowed for couples undergoing MAR treatments. Consequently, in the last decade, there has been an increase in application of the oocyte donation programme. This study reports an egg-donation programme’s clinical efficacy, based on importing donated vitrified oocytes from cryo-banks located in a foreign country. For this, we conducted a retrospective analysis of data from a single reproductive unit located in Italy (Donna Salus Women’s Health and Fertility, Bozen). The study group consisted of 681 vitrified oocytes, which were warmed and culture to be replaced in 100 recipients. The survival rate after warming was 79.1% (n = 539/681), whereas the fertilization and blastulation rates were 90.2% (n = 486/539) and 47.9% (n = 233/486), respectively. Positive pregnancy test, clinical pregnancy rates, and live-birth rates per embryo transfer were 37.8%, 31.1% and 28.4%, respectively. The multiple pregnancy rate was 0.7%. This study is one of the first to report on the efficacy of a donor oocyte programme in Italy using imported vitrified oocytes. The above data may reassure women who are undertaking donation programmes using vitrified oocytes imported from commercial egg banks.

Keywords

Egg donation programmeEmbryo cultureIn vitro fertilization (IVF)Live-birth rateOocyte vitrification-warmingPregnancy outcomes
Type
Research Article
Information
Zygote , Volume 29 , Issue 5 , October 2021 , pp. 410 - 416
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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