Women Wanting to Preserve Fertility Can Now Freeze Their Eggs
Egg or oocyte cryopreservation particularly useful for women stricken with cancer

Las Vegas, NV - A cancer diagnosis shocks most but for women who want children, the diagnosis is all the more heartbreaking. Fortunately specialists at The Fertility Center of Las Vegas have refined a cryopreservation (freezing) technique for the female's eggs that has proven to be highly successful.

"Cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation can render a woman sterile," says UCLA-educated reproductive endocrinologist Dr. Said Daneshmand, partner of The Fertility Center of Las Vegas whose research interests concentrate in ovarian issues. "We also know that women 35 years and older have greater difficulty conceiving but in the absence of a suitable partner may have no choice about childbearing until now."

Cryopreservation is deep freezing cells in liquid nitrogen. It is most often used for embryos or sperm and is relatively commonplace in fertility practices providing in-vitro fertilization (IVF) or "test-tube" fertilization. However, oocyte cryopreservation or egg freezing has presented a greater challenge. First the female's egg is a more delicate cell; second, most infertility patients are seeking pregnancy and therefore eggs are quickly fertilized vs. frozen; and third, the cell medium or suspensions used to preserve the egg have often compromised its viability.

According to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM.org), a woman's age is one of the single most important factors in maintaining fertility. Cancer patients have an entirely different circumstance but the technologies to preserve their fertility are the same. Prior to definite treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation, the woman's ovaries will be stimulated to produce eggs. When they're ripe, typically around 12 days, they will be harvested under ultrasound guidance needle aspiration and subsequently stored.

To date The Fertility Center has provided ooctye cryopreservation to nearly a dozen women. They have also extended special programs for cancer patients for whom having a baby after cancer treatment is possible. Says Dr. Daneshmand, "No one should have to endure the struggle of cancer, get better, only to realize they can no longer have their own biologic family. We want to provide hope and help in the best way we can."