Many caveats exist in oocyte freezing. Egg freezing success rates are increasing. But success is not 100% guaranteed. Leading fertility expert discusses current state of oocyte cryopreservation and egg freezing success rates.

Oocyte freezing is very popular. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Does egg freezing guarantee success when oocytes are thawed? What are egg freezing success rates? Dr. Heather Huddleston, MD. Is it the same as baby in freezer? How age influence success in egg freezing? Why does Facebook offer female employees to freeze their eggs for free? How developed oocyte cryopreservation technology? What is oocyte freezing process? Who should think of egg freezing? What is the best age to freeze eggs for a woman? Dr. Heather Huddleston, MD. Director of egg donor program. Video interview with leading expert in fertility treatment and reproductive medicine. Egg freezing success rate can be as high as 70%. Medical second opinion confirms that infertility diagnosis is correct and complete. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Medical second opinion also confirms that oocyte freezing is required. Medical second opinion helps to choose the best treatment for infertility. Get medical second opinion on infertility and be confident that your oocyte cryopreservation egg freezing treatment is the best. Oocyte freezing success rate continued to increase. Egg freezing process. Oocyte cryopreservation success. Online medical second opinion on infertility. 1234 Oocyte freezing (oocyte cryopreservation) is an increasingly discussed topic. Dr. Heather Huddleston, MD. Sometimes women wish to delay their pregnancy and motherhood. Risks and benefits of egg freezing are much debated. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. There is no 100% success rate. Eggs can be successfully thawed and a baby can result from them. What are key aspects of egg freezing (oocyte cryopreservation)? What are the controversial points of egg freezing? Online medical second opinion on infertility. 1234 (Reproductive Medicine, Fertility specialist, UCSF). Egg freezing is a very new phenomenon in the United States. It has expanded rapidly in the past five years Several years ago ASRM (American Society for Reproductive Medicine) lifted an experimental label from egg freezing. Dr. Heather Huddleston, MD. ASRM previously considered oocyte freezing to be an experimental procedure. Because the egg freezing (oocyte cryopreservation) technology was new and untested. ASRM lifted the experimental designation because there was evidence that egg freezing was offering some benefits. There was a reasonable success rate from women who froze their eggs. Success of pregnancy from frozen eggs is increasing. Since that time many clinics started doing doing freezing. Our clinic at UCSF started doing egg freezing for social indications. This is in addition to pre-cancer treatment indications for oocyte cryopreservation. Social indications for egg freezing means that procedure is done because of wishes of a woman to freeze eggs. We have started offering egg freezing to women 2 or 3 years ago. We have seen a lot of growth in this area of fertility medicine. There are definitely some concerns. Our biggest concern with egg freezing process is this. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. There is not a lot of data yet about success rates. So we cannot counsel women with certainty. We are not sure about the success rate is for thawing frozen eggs and achieving pregnancy. We cannot look to a large body of data and say this. "We think that 10 eggs you just froze will give you a 70% success rate" (of fertilization and pregnancy). Dr. Heather Huddleston, MD. We are very much estimating it based on the existing medical literature. So I think that is an unfortunate part of egg freezing process. But hopefully that will change over time as we have more women coming back to use their frozen eggs. Then we can generate statistics that would be used for counseling women who wish to freeze oocytes. There is another concern as egg freezing becomes widespread. We don't want women to change their behavior too much. We don't want women to find too much reassurance that they froze their eggs. I think freezing eggs is a great thing for people to do. It is a wonderful thing for women that these technologies come along. But I also would not want women to think this. "I have my baby in the freezer now. I can do whatever I want and have no worries at all. I'll be able to have my family at the age of 48". Because we don't know. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. We are not able to say for sure that those eggs are going to thaw well. Dr. Heather Huddleston, MD. We cannot guarantee that eggs are going to fertilize. So all this is a little bit unknown So it is somewhat reassuring that there is this option. Egg cryopreservation is backup plan for women. But it's just not a guarantee. Online medical second opinion on infertility. 1234 So it's important to know that freezing eggs is not a 100% guarantee of pregnancy with thawed eggs later on. It is an option. Online medical second opinion on infertility. 1234 It's an option. We do also think that the younger you are when you freeze your eggs, the better the chance you have for those eggs offering something to you. This could be leading to a pregnancy. So women who freeze their eggs at 41 years of age should remember that those eggs are still going to be suffering some of those problems that we see with increasing age. I do you feel better about the women who are freezing eggs (freezing oocytes) before they are 35 or 36 years of age. I think there may be a reasonable chance that freezing eggs then could lead to pregnancy. As women get older than 35, it's going to be a little tricky. Some frozen eggs will probably work and some eggs will not result in pregnancy when they are thawed. Online medical second opinion on infertility. 1234 How safe is egg donation procedure. What happens if a woman desires to donate her eggs? Dr. Anton Titov, MD. What are key aspects that the woman can expect to go through? How does egg donation process work? Online medical second opinion on infertility. 1234 Dr. Heather Huddleston, MD. We find egg donation process and procedure to be quite safe for the vast majority of cases. It is something we take very seriously. I spent a lot of time counseling our future and potential egg donors. I tell them what exactly is involved and what are the risks of oocyte donation. But fortunately the vast majority of women who donate their eggs do so very safely. They do not have any complications. But they do need to be aware of the complications. We see some complications with any patient doing fertility treatment. This will apply to them as an egg donor. For example, things like ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. This is when ovaries are over-responding to medications. It can make you retain a lot fluid. You can become quite sick after an egg retrieval. Dr. Heather Huddleston, MD. This is a potential risk. Complications of the procedure to remove the eggs include bleeding and infection. But procedure-related complications are really rare. But there are things that we need to just counsel the women about it. They may be willing to do egg donation. They just need to understand they have some risk of complications. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Egg freezing success rates. Is it 100% guaranteed? Video interview with leading fertility expert. How good is oocyte cryopreservation technology?