Patient information from Hollywood Fertility Centre

Egg freezing (vitrification)

Why egg vitrification (snap freezing) is superior to traditional egg freezing (slow)

The egg is the largest cell in the body and contains a lot of water. The classic problem with freezing eggs has been that as the temperature drops below freezing point, ice crystals form inside the egg and cause damage to the genetic material.

Vitrification is an ultra rapid cooling technique that allows the water inside and surrounding the egg to instantaneously super cool into a solid state with no ice crystal formation at all.

The process is identical to the way we vitrify embryos, which is described on this page.

Reasons why egg vitrification might be used

There are many situations when it may be suitable to store eggs, these may include:

  • when a younger woman wants to preserve her fertility and store eggs while she is still young;
  • when a single woman is at risk of losing her fertility as a result of cytotoxic therapy; or
  • if ethical/religious considerations doesn’t permit the storage of embryos.

Hollywood Fertility Centre's success with vitrification

We have been vitrifying embryos (day 5 blastocysts) clinically since January 2006 which resulted in an immediate 10% increase in pregnancy rates from a frozen embryo transfer.

Egg vitrification with Hollywood Fertility Centre

Egg vitrification is currently offered for use at Hollywood Fertility Centre for patients with medical reasons (eg: prior to chemotherapy, Turners Syndrome) or in cases of emergency (eg: no sperm available on the day of egg pick up).

We are now offering egg vitrification for social reasons.

Success rates using vitrified eggs

Sydney IVF has limited in-house clinical data.

A recent clinical study (Antinori 2007*) of 120 volunteers (463 vitrified eggs) found the following:

  • 99.4% vitrified eggs survived the warming procedure
  • 92.9% of warmed eggs were fertilised
  • 13.2% implantation rate per embryo
  • 32.5% pregnancy rate

A recent review of obstetric and perinatal outcomes (Chian 2008**) in 200 infants conceived following egg vitrification cycles, found no increased incidents of anomalies when compared to infants conceived naturally or through IVF.

* Antinori et al., 2007 Reprod. Med Online 14:72-79. ** Chian et al., 2008 Reprod. Med Online 16:608-610.

Explanation of fees

Vitrification

In order to collect eggs for vitrification, patients will undergo a cycle of ovarian stimulation and a surgical egg pick-up procedure similar to a patient beginning IVF treatment.

Warming

Warming involves thawing the eggs, fertilising them with the partner's or donor sperm, culturing the embryo to blastocyst stage and transferring it to the patient's uterus.

Medical egg vitrification costs (fees current as of 1st July 2008)

If a patient is undergoing chemotherapy or other cytotoxic therapy that will damage her eggs, she may be eligible to apply for a Medicare rebate for egg freezing.

Treatment Procedure cost Medicare rebate Total cost after
Medicare safety net
Egg vitrification $6,970.00 $2,052.70 $2,034.10
Egg warming $4,021.00 $814.25 $1,058.15

Social egg vitrification costs (fees current as of 1st July 2008)

For patients whose reasons for vitrifying eggs is non-medical, Medicare rebates are not available.

Treatment Procedure cost

Drug cost

 Total cost
Egg vitrification $7,668.00 $1,500.00 - $3,000.00 $9,168.00 - $10,688.00
Egg warming $4,425.00 NA $4,425.00