Cryopreservation of embryos

IVF Laboratory / Cryopreservation of embryos

The Assisted Human Reproduction Program within our clinic is equipped for cryopreservation of quality embryos, obtained but not transferred after the fertilization cycle.

Embryos are frozen using some special environments for these procedure and the freezing machine, in liquid nitrogen. The principle is based on the gradual lowering of temperature, in accordance with a well establish program.

Frozen embryos are stored in sealed tubes and labeled with the patient personal data, frozen date, the number of frozen embryos and their quality. The tubes are kept in colored dewars, in liquid nitrogen, at -196 C until the thawing procedure.

The best results in the slow freezing preservation procedure are obtained for embryos without fragmentations (A and A1 quality) of 2-6 cells.

The statistic data from specialized literature prove that there is no difference, regarding the number of genetic abnormalities, between cases of frozen and thawed embryos and those transferred without freezing-thawing.

The procedure of intrauterine transfer of defrost embryos is identical to that used in the transfer of the fresh embryos.

The success rate of defrost embryos transfers is lower compared to the one of fresh embryos transfers, but the advantage of the first one is a higher success rate of the entire process or, in cases of patients that remained pregnant from the fresh embryos transfer, the possibility to conceive in time another child, without having to repeat the stimulation and ovarian puncture procedure.