Where is it indicated?

• Women who want to conceive at a later date, but want to freeze their eggs when young (when the count & quality is best)
• Women suffering from cancer & need to undergo chemotherapy/radiation, as these treatments can reduce the egg reserve.
• Women who need to undergo surgeries which can damage the ovaries
• Females with other chronic conditions (eg: endometriosis, etc) which can decrease fertility potential, but are planning pregnancy at a later date.
• Egg donation: women who donate their eggs to other couples.
• Women at risk of ovarian cancer (eg: BRCA mutations) & in whom ovary removal might be needed.

Procedure:

Women need to take hormonal injections for  9 to 12 days to grow follicles. When follicles are mature, egg retrieval is done under general anaesthesia. A needle is injected & the eggs are aspirated out. There will be no cuts or sutures & this is a safe procedure. Mature eggs are frozen.

Outcome:

Results depend on :

• Age at which eggs are frozen
• Number of mature eggs frozen

Indications:

• Men with cancer & need to undergo chemotherapy/radiation, which can affect sperm count.
• Men who are Azospermic (no sperms), but, sperms were obtained via testicular biopsy.
• Men who live away/abroad from their partners, can freeze their sperms, so that their partners can undergo fertility treatments to conceive using their husband’s frozen sperm.
• Donor sperm: donors are screened for viral infections & only when negative, their sperm are frozen & used after a quarantine period of 6 months. After 6 months, donors are screened again & only if everything is normal, their frozen sperms are used for other couples.

Procedure:

Blood tests (HIV, HbSAg, HCV, VDRL, etc) to rule out viral infections.

Semen sample given after abstinence of 3-4 days.

Sample is frozen in lab / bank.

Side-effects / Outcome:

It is a safe procedure. Sperms can be frozen up to many years & quality does not deteriorate with time when frozen.