Pregnancy and Implantation Rates of Donor Oocyte Recipients Obtaining Oocytes from Infertile Donors with Unexplained Infertility are Comparable to the Rates Obtained from Oocytes from Donors Whose Infertility Etiology is Tubal or Male Factor

Abstract

Background and Significance: There are two main methods for supplying oocytes to women with decreased egg reserve: paid donors and donors who are trying to get pregnant by in vitro fertilization (IVF) who share half of the oocytes retrieved for reducing the cost of their own IVF procedure. Many recipients are fearful of selecting a shared donor with unexplained infertility fearing that the oocyte may be the problem, and thus only a small percentage of chosen donors have the diagnosis of unexplained infertility. Objective: The purpose of the study was to determine if a donor oocyte recipient who selects oocytes from an infertile woman with unexplained infertility has less of a chance of conception and delivery than if the oocytes were selected from infertile donors with known tubal or male factor infertility. Materials and Methods: A retrospective review of donor oocyte recipient cycles from over six years was conducted. If the recipient elected to freeze all embryos without a fresh transfer these cycles were eliminated. If a donor had endometriosis but normal tubes and a normal male partner this was considered as unexplained infertility. Results: There were 159 shared oocyte cycles evaluated as well as 403 paid oocyte fresh embryo transfers. The fertilization rates and clinical ongoing/delivered pregnancy rates and implantation rates are seen in the table below. Though there were only 12 transfers in the endometriosis and unexplained category, there were 8 clinical pregnancies (66.7% clinical pregnancy rate/cycle) and 7 ongoing delivered pregnancies (58.3%). For this combined group there were 12 embryos that implanted out of 41 that were transferred (29.2% implantation rate). Tabled 1EndometriosisTubalMale factorUnexplainedPaid donor# transfers590517394# eggs inseminated1031369660936457% fertilized69.968.264.180.669.3Avg. # embryos transferred4.03.33.23.03.0% implanted25.035.828.433.329.8% clinical pregnancy per transfer60.064.456.971.456.6% ongoing/delivered per transfer60.060.047.157.151.0 Open table in a new tab Conclusion: Donor oocytes obtained from women with unexplained infertility/endometriosis result in comparable pregnancy and implantation rates as paid donors and shared donors with diagnosis of tubal factor and male factor. Hopefully these data will encourage more recipients to choose from this category of shared donors and a larger sample size can be evaluated in the future. Though not the focus of the study, these data also show that oocytes from shared infertile oocyte donors provide recipients with comparable outcome as paid donors.