Pregnacy Rate Heats up at City Fertility Centres

04-Dec-2009 October has seen the arrival of the first wave of babies conceived using City Fertility Centre’s new rapid freezing embryo programme.

City Fertility Centre’s Scientific Director, Adnan Catakovic said the new vitrification or ‘rapid freezing’ process worked 7,000 times faster than slow freezing and had resulted in a dramatic increase in pregnancy rates.

“Since introducing rapid freezing, City Fertility Centre has increased embryo survival rates from 60-70% (slow freezing) to 80-90% (rapid freezing) and pregnancy rates have improved from 30% (slow freezing) to 40-50% (rapid freezing),” Adnan said*.

“Rapid freezing (also known as vitrification) - greatly reduces the risk of rupturing or damage to the embryo as there is no chance for ice to form within the cell,” he said.

City Fertility Centre’s co-founder, Dr Ashish Das, said the new technology had the potential to reduce the impact of IVF on patients. “Freezing embryos helps reduce the discomfort of IVF and offers multiple chances to become pregnant,” Dr Das said.

“These results show that rapid frozen blastocyst embryos have better survival rates post thawing and, most importantly, are delivering higher pregnancy rates than traditional methods,” he said

“This is particularly good news given the pending changes to Medicare rebates for IVF from 1 January 2010.”

QUICK FACTS

1. There are now 23 confirmed pregnancies with patients using rapid frozen embryos with the first of these babies due in October.

2. Rapid freezing is producing better outcomes – bringing patients closer to their dream of taking home a baby.

3. Vitrification is a new technology in IVF treatment that City Fertility Centre has successfully adapted into a rapid freezing programme. It is now available for embryos and eggs stored at their centres located in Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Melbourne.


*NB: The results at City Fertility Centre are exceptional when compared to internationally published data on rapid frozen blastocyst embryos.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT CITY FERTILITY CENTRE 1800 123 483