POF: Future Help On the Horizon?

In my experience as a fertility specialist - and as a mother - by far one of the most traumatic diagnoses to render to a patient is one of POF, premature ovarian failure.

A POF diagnosis can ring with emotionally painful finality in a patient's mind. It means, in effect, premature menopause, sometimes as early as the woman's 20's. However, I am grateful to have alternatives to present in many cases. For many women with POF, the use of donor eggs with IVF can result in successful pregnancy.

Today there is even better news, even if only of the long-range type. Scientists have found more evidence of genetic connections to the incidence of POF. What this means is that the future may possibly hold a test that can tell very young women of their chance for having POF.

Presumably if a young woman with healthy eggs tests positive for the gene mutation, she could have her healthy existing egg cells retrieved and cryopreserved for later use.

I look forward to every additional opportunity I'm given for presenting a fulfilled future to women with POF.

Oocyte-specific gene mutations cause premature ovarian failure - Baylor College of Medicine

Technorati Tags: premature ovarian failure,pof,infertility treatment,premature menopause,egg freezing

In the End, Treatment Not For Everyone

We are lucky to live in a time when assisted reproductive technology can assist so many with making their dreams come true. Still, some people do indeed arrive at the conclusion that they've pursued treatment to a different end.

This article on Canada.com (Choices that will bear fruit) provides a well-balanced illustration of two different end-of-treatment options. In both cases, numerous attempts with fertility treatment did not result in pregnancy. One couple chose to build their family through adoption. The other is remaining child-free.

When pursuing a goal as heartfelt as having a baby, it's difficult for anyone to look at the 'what-if's' -- some may even call it defeatist thinking. In fact, there comes a time for some fertility patients when all options must be at least put on the table for viewing, if not actively chosen at that time.

What this article does not have the time or space to detail are the no-doubt lengthy journeys through complex emotions that these couples went through toward their decisions. Hopefully and most likely, they had the emotional and informational support of their fertility treatment team in the process. After all, while we reproductive endocrinologists focus on creating new life, our goals as physicians are to provide healing for our patients. Sometimes that means knowing when to say "when."

Technorati Tags: infertility treatment,adoption,child-free

Leftover Sperm: Too Much of a Good Thing?

In some ways, Canada's a lot like the States. Their "rules" about reproductive medicine are almost as wide open as here in the U.S. -- so far. In this article from The Canadian Press, fertility specialists discuss the increasing problem of "abandoned" frozen sperm.

The freezing of sperm cells is now a fine-tuned technology. Much of the credit for that goes directly to the little cells themselves, of course: sperm cells are simply built in a way that helps them survive the freeze-thaw process and come out intact enough to fertilize an egg. Eggs, on the other hand, have proven trickier to get through that journey for later use, but we're far better at it recently than ever before (thanks mostly to the Italians, who were given few choices by their intervening government!)

Sperm cells that were frozen for nearly 30 years have been successfully thawed and used with IVF to result in healthy babies. We haven't been freezing eggs that long yet, so there are some unanswered questions on the female side of delayed conception.

Men who froze semen samples in the past don't always come forward later to use their sperm. So now, some cryopreservation facilities are finding themselves with forgotten stock. So many years have gone by now, these older labs are literally running out of storage room. The technicians and administrators find themselves in a bit of an ethical and pragmatic dilemma. This article points to Health Canada, the country's Federal department in charge of health care, as being in the process of creating some related guidelines.

It will be interesting to see how Canada deals with the problem.

Also interesting -- the article notes that frozen eggs are typically not abandoned, and says a possible reason may be the far different procedures that are required to acquire sperm versus egg cells.

Technorati Tags: frozen sperm,canada,cryopreservation,fertility,ivf

 

The Canadian Press: Sperm banks seek men who have forgotten 'little swimmers'