Dr Ismail was interviewed on BBC Arabic in 2018 about fertility preservation. Find the video on our YouTube channel here.
Cryopreservation (Freezing)
If you are looking to conceive at a later date, or are intending to undergo medical treatment that could affect your fertility, cryopreservation is a way of preserving your healthy eggs/sperm/embryo to be used for pregnancy later on. Before participating in any method of cryopreservation, you will need to participate in blood studies and other forms of investigations.
Sperm Freezing
Reasons for sperm freezing:
- If you are undergoing fertility treatment, so that you have a sample readily available if you are unable to produce a sample on the day of egg collection
- If you are planning to have a vasectomy
- Before undergoing cancer treatment which may affect your future fertility
- As part of surgical retrieval of sperm from the epididymis (PESA) or testes (TESA)
The initial storage period is 1 year or, in cases such as pre-chemotherapy, it will be stored for 10 years.
Egg Freezing
Reasons for egg freezing:
- If you wish to delay fertility for personal and/or career reasons (e.g. celebrities or businesswomen)
- Before chemotherapy or radiotherapy treatments for cancer
- If you are producing excessive eggs during IVF cycles and wish to save them for future use, instead of having to carry out the full treatment again
- In preparation for other medical treatments that will affect the ovaries
The egg collection is performed in the same way as for IVF. The eggs are then frozen within 24 hours.
Not all frozen eggs that are thawed for use will be healthy, so it is not guaranteed that they can be used for conception.
Embryo Freezing
Fertility treatments such as IVF often generate more embryos than are needed for the treatment. You may be advised to freeze them for future use.
Embryos can be frozen at various stages of their development- day 1, called the pronuclear stage, day 2/3, called the cell stage, or day 5/6, called the blastocyst stage. More than 70% of embryos survive the thawing process. The embryos are usually stored for a period of 10 years.
Ovarian Tissue Freezing
This is a very successful method of fertility preservation, significantly more so than egg freezing. Queen’s Clinic are proud to be one of a very elite number of fertility clinics globally who currently offer the service.
This procedure involves removing the outer ovarian layer from your body during laparoscopic surgery, which contains a large number of immature eggs that can be grown and developed using various fertility treatments. This can be hundreds of eggs, compared to only about 10 using egg freezing! In most cases only part of the ovary will be removed, but we may decide that it will be more effective for you to preserve the whole ovary.
This is often recommended to women who are intending to undergo cancer treatments and women with early signs of ovarian cancer.
This treatment is relatively new, but it is already proving to be very successful and we are confident in this procedure.
ICSI (Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection)
ICSI is used if your sperm sample quality/quantity is very low and failed to benefit from previous medical treatments. It involves injecting a single sperm cell directly into the egg, to give a much greater chance of successful development. ICSI is recommended if:
- There is a severe problem with your sperm’s quality
- Your sperm was surgically retrieved
- Previous IVF treatment resulted in none or very few of the eggs being fertilized
Approximately 70% of eggs fertilized using ICSI will successfully result in a pregnancy, making it just as successful as IVF.
If you are interested in any of these procedures, please book an appointment with Queen’s Clinic by phoning us on 020 7935 5540.
