Bluegrass Fertility Center News
Lexington Herald-Leader - Lexington woman uses frozen eggs to get pregnant
WTVQ Channel 36 - Lexington woman uses frozen eggs to get pregnant
First Pregnancy from First Frozen Donor Egg Bank in the World
06/26/2005 07:44 AM Lexington Herald-Leader
Posted on Sun, Jun. 26, 2005
Lexington woman uses frozen eggs to get pregnant
By Barbara Isaacs
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
Lexington 's Wendy and Jared Kennedy are expecting a baby created from the latest in fertility treatment -- a frozen donor egg. They were the second customers at a novel new business that markets frozen human eggs to the infertile.
Wendy Kennedy, 40, a University of Kentucky cancer nurse, is the first woman to become pregnant using frozen donor eggs from Cryo Eggs International. The Phoenix-based egg bank is thought to be the first company to specialize in selling frozen donor eggs.
The bank began selling frozen donor eggs in March, and the Kennedys are among a handful of couples who have purchased eggs so far. Their baby is due Jan. 10. "I really wanted, if I could, to experience pregnancy," said Wendy Kennedy, who is not able to produce healthy eggs. "I've told my friends: 'I have a good oven. Just no buns.'"
The marketing of frozen human eggs is a new phenomenon brought about by improvements in techniques for freezing and thawing. Sperm and embryos have long been frozen for use in fertility treatment. But eggs have been much more difficult to preserve because of their high water content and tendency to form damaging ice crystals when frozen.
Most often, human eggs used in fertility treatments are harvested from the ovaries and then immediately implanted after fertilization in the laboratory. But frozen eggs may eventually become the preferred option. Donor sperm, for instance, is never used fresh because of the risk of HIV transmission; it's held for months until its safety can be confirmed.
For now, the use of frozen eggs is considered experimental. They are up to 20 percent less likely to result in pregnancy than using fresh eggs. Fewer than 200 children worldwide have been born from frozen eggs. But the ability to freeze donor eggs is a promising new frontier. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine issued a report on improvements in egg freezing last year. And just last month Canadian doctors reported the first birth in that country from a frozen egg.
Selecting a frozen egg
The frozen egg bank in Phoenix has strong Lexington ties. Its medical director is Dr. James Akin, a Lexington, Kentucky fertility specialist, and the egg bank has some Lexington doctors among its financial investors.
When Wendy Kennedy consulted with Akin, her fertility specialist, she decided frozen eggs were a good choice. Akin performed Kennedy's in vitro procedure in Lexington ; the eggs were shipped frozen by FedEx.
The doctor who does the in vitro procedure is instructed on how to thaw them. "With frozen, you get the pick of the litter and you use them when you want to," Wendy said. "This was pretty much our only shot."
She and her husband looked over photos of about 12 donors and agreed on the same one, a young woman "who looked like she fit in our family tree -- she looked like she could be a sibling or a cousin," Wendy Kennedy said. The egg bank gathers a great deal of information about donors. Kennedy got 20 pages of information about her egg donor that went back three generations, including the medical history and occupations of the donor's grandparents. Her egg donor is attractive, petite and athletic with a high grade point average.
Donors also undergo genetic testing, psychological evaluations and other examinations. Similar profiles are available for people who seek a sperm donor. Wendy Kennedy was able to receive frozen eggs more quickly than coordinating a fresh egg donation; there often is a waiting list for fresh eggs. And fresh eggs are about $5,000 more expensive than frozen, Akin said. Frozen eggs also eliminate the need to coordinate menstrual cycles with the donor, which is necessary when receiving fresh donor eggs.
"It would be similar to a sperm donor bank," said Dr. Serena Chen, director of reproductive medicine for St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston , N.J. "Logistically, it makes it much easier. It might really change the donor egg system."
'A quantum leap forward'
Akin said frozen donor eggs have other benefits. Their bank requires a six-month quarantine of the eggs. Donors are tested for a variety of infectious diseases before egg retrieval and again before the eggs are released to buyers. It's the same sort of system that has long been used for donor sperm, which is frozen and quarantined to reduce the chance of HIV transmission.
Indianapolis embryologist Jeffrey Boldt, scientific director of the egg bank, developed the freezing technique used in Kennedy's procedure. His research on egg freezing was published in the journal Human Reproduction in 2003. Boldt's technique has a reported 60 percent survival of eggs after thawing and a pregnancy rate of more than 30 percent. "That's a quantum leap forward," Akin said. When egg freezing was first tried in 1986, only 1 to 2 percent of eggs survived the thaw.
"Dr. Boldt's results are not that bad, though they're still not comparable to using fresh donor eggs," said Dr. Mark Damario, a University of Minnesota reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist. "Fresh eggs have been the mainstay." Using a fresh egg gives about a 50 percent chance of pregnancy; it's about 20 percent less with frozen, Akin said.
That's a serious issue for some fertility experts. "To take someone's money in a commercial venture with these kind of numbers is very difficult," said Dr. Charles Miller, a reproductive endocrinologist from Illinois who is on the advisory board for-RESOLVE, a national infertility association. "Egg freezing still seems to be relatively ineffective," Chen said. "It still kind of remains to be seen what effect it will have on infertility treatment, but it does have enormous potential."
Being able to freeze eggs could be potentially useful for young women who must undergo chemotherapy or radiation for cancer treatment; they could have eggs retrieved and stored before the treatments. Some companies already offer egg freezing to women for their own use. At this point, because so few children have been born from frozen eggs, it's unknown whether there is a higher incidence of birth defects. That has not been the case in children born from frozen eggs so far, Akin said.
An expensive procedure
The Kennedys bought seven eggs at $2,500 each. Three were successfully fertilized with Jared Kennedy's sperm and implanted on April 23. Wendy is 11 weeks pregnant with a single baby. The in vitro procedure is an additional cost; the whole process cost more than $20,000. The bank has collected donor eggs from about 20 women so far. It's an invasive process -- donors must take drugs to stimulate their ovaries to produce extra eggs. The eggs are then removed under light anesthesia with a needle, Akin said.
Donors are typically healthy college-age women who are paid between $2,000 and $8,000 per retrieval procedure, Akin said. The compensation is similar to that paid by agencies that harvest fresh eggs.
Kennedy said she would love to meet her donor someday. "I feel like I know her already," Wendy said.
WTVQ Channel 36 - Lexington woman uses frozen eggs to get pregnant
By Carla Wade
Jun 22, 19:05 PM EDT
Wendy Kennedy thought she might never have a child after she was told her own eggs were to old to conceive. But, now at the age of 40, Wendy is expecting her first child in January. Wendy underwent in-vitro fertilization after getting donated eggs from the world's first donor egg bank in Phoenix, Arizona.
The company is called Cryo Eggs International. A woman can choose from hundreds of donors from looking at photos and detailed medical history. Wendy found out Lexington fertility doctor James Akin was doing an investigational procedure using donated eggs. After she and her husband picked a donor, the frozen eggs were thawed and fertilized by her husband and then implanted inside her womb. Each egg costs about $2,500 and multiple eggs are usually necessary in case some of the eggs are not viable.
First Pregnancy from First Frozen Donor Egg Bank in the World
June 21, 2005 -- Although sperm banks have been around for decades, assisting couples or single women create wanted children, now the first global egg bank, Cryo Eggs International, has opened in the U.S. and a Lexington, Kentucky couple is pregnant with the first frozen and thawed eggs. "I think everybody should know this option is available," says Wendy Kennedy, first woman pregnant from CEI's donor egg bank.
Freezing sperm has been a much easier proposition, but until recently, the technology did not exist to freeze womens' eggs. Now a woman who needs young, healthy and fertile eggs to conceive a child of her own can contact Cryo Eggs International (CEI), based in Phoenix , Arizona , and get "matched" with a woman whose eggs are frozen. The eggs are shipped anywhere in the world, thawed, fertilized with the husband's sperm and transferred as an embryo to a waiting woman who wishes to experience the pregnancy and birth of her baby.
There are many reasons for infertility, but the most common problem for women over age 35 is simply that their eggs are getting too old to work the way they should. Diana Thomas, managing partner of CEI knows this only too well. "I tried for 15 years to have children - I thought that once I wanted them, conception would be easy, but it wasn't. It was hard, very hard to get pregnant and only after 18 procedures, from low level technology to using a younger woman's egg, was I able to have my first son at age 40."
The first frozen donor egg bank was formed based on new egg freezing methods developed by Dr. Boldt, Scientific Director for CEI. For five years, Dr. Boldt's work was overseen by an Institutional Review Board to ensure all professional standards were met. Dr. Boldt's most recent data shows that he has consistently achieved a greater than 60% survival rate when thawing eggs, and an over a 30% pregnancy rate per embryo transfer procedure, when using eggs from infertility patients. It is expected that these success rates will be higher using donor eggs, where eggs are obtained from younger women with no history of infertility.
Donor eggs are now commonly used in infertility therapy worldwide. In 2001, in the U.S. alone over 12,000 women tried to conceive using "fresh" donor eggs. Many of the problems a woman and her physician must overcome when using "fresh" donor eggs are virtually eliminated with a frozen donor egg from the CEI Bank. Frozen donor eggs offer unprecedented convenience, eliminate many geographical restrictions as eggs can be shipped world-wide and remove the risk of "failed" fresh cycles where no eggs are retrieved as mature eggs are guaranteed when purchased from CEI. Also, the use of frozen donor eggs essentially eliminates any of the current health hazards from infectious disease transmission present in a "fresh" donor cycle. Women who require donor eggs to conceive will have the opportunity to purchase eggs from the CEI bank, which currently has over 250 eggs from educated women in their 20s representing a variety of ethnicities. CEI is registered with the FDA and follows or exceed all FDA guidelines for infectious disease screening.
The three experienced professionals that operate CEI include Dr. Jeffrey Boldt, Scientific Director; Dr. James Akin, Medical Director; and Diana Thomas, CEO and Managing Partner. Dr. Boldt developed the technology that allows for the successful freezing and thawing of human eggs. Dr. Akin has practiced infertility for 15 years in both an academic university setting as well as private practice. Diana Thomas had her three children with the help of donor eggs and has owned and operated an international egg donor recruiting agency for eight years.
Contact Information:
Diana Thomas
CEO, Cryo Eggs International
2250 East Palmaire Avenue
Phoenix , Arizona 85020
Phone: 602-331-2427
Fax: 602-678-0328
http://www.CryoEggsIntl.com
Dr. Jeffrey Boldt
Scientific Director, Cryo Eggs International
Laboratory Director and Embryologist, Bluegrass Fertility Center
Phone: 317-621-5802
Dr. James Akin
Medical Director, Cryo Eggs International
Medical Director, Bluegrass Fertility Center
Phone: 859-260-1515