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Career first, children later: Taiwan women put their eggs on ice

HSINCHU, Taiwan | Tue Aug 27, 2013 10:44am IST
(Reuters) - Caught between traditional expectations and career pressures, working women in Taiwan are increasingly opting to freeze their eggs at fertility clinics as they postpone marriage and motherhood.
An employee checks oocytes and embryos (in the sealed test tubes) in tanks filled with liquid nitrogen in a storage room at the e-Stork Reproductive Center in Hsinchu, northern Taiwan, August 8, 2013. REUTERS/Pichi Chuang/Files




Women play a big part in Taiwan's workforce, trailing only New Zealand and Australia for female employment among 14 countries in Asia, a recent report by MasterCard showed.


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Stork Fertility Center Stork Fertility Center Author

Experience of blastocyst culture in dry culture system

Experience of blastocyst culture in dry culture system
AuthorHsing-Hua Lai*, Huai-Ling Wang, Wen-Yi Chiang, Yao-Cheng Huang, Saing-Chi Chen, Wan-Jung Hsieh, Chun-Chuan Chen, Chi-An Hsieh, Shih-Chieh Huang, Ya-Hui Hsu, Hsin-Hua Chou
Editor
Seminar name
Keyword
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The advantages of dry culture system include minimal risk of contamination, fast recovery of gas concentration, and more stable temperature controlling. From economical point of view, dry incubators are space and gas saving due to small chamber volume. However, there are disadvantages such as swift variation of environment and higher water evaporation rate. Dry incubators are not as common as humidified incubators in routine use. To assess the clinical application, a preliminary feasibility study was conducted.


Stork Fertility Center Stork Fertility Center Author

Accumulating oocytes or blastocyst for low responders? Age as a criterion

Accumulating Oocytes or Blastocysts for Low Responders? Age as a Criterion
AuthorShih-Chieh Huang, Huai-Ling Wang, Wen-Yi Jiang, Hsing-Hua Chou, Hsing-Hua Lai
EditorHsing-Hua Chou
Seminar name2012Asia Pacific Initiative on Reproduction
KeywordBlastocyst vitrification, oocyte vitrification, DOR
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Low responders (LRs) are mostly from diminished ovarian reserve and/or advanced maternal age. They may experience repeated IVF failure caused by few or no embryos to transfer. In this cohort, accumulating oocytes or blastocysts to obtain more embryos could be benefit in improving clinical pregnancy rate (CPR). Several studies have shown maternal age as a determining factor in IVF treatment. In this study, we compared IVF outcome between two groups with oocyte or blastocyst accumulation at different age levels.

Stork Fertility Center Stork Fertility Center Author

Blastocyst stage microarray-based genomic screening in improving clinical pregnancy rate and implantation rate

Blastocyst stage microarray-based genomic screening in improving clinical pregnancy rate and implantation rate
AuthorHsing-Hua Lai, Huai-Ling Wang, Wen-Yi Chiang, Shih-Chieh Huang, Ya-Hui Hsu
EditorShih-Chieh Huang
Seminar name2011 TSRM
KeywordPGS, aCGH, blastocyst culture
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Identification of embryos with the highest implantation potential is a crucial step in IVF. Blastocyst transfer (BT) has been proved to have higher implantation rate and live birth rate than D3 embryo transfer owing to a further embryo selection mechanism. However, morphological grading provides us only part of clue to choosing a best quality blastocyst. As chromosome abnormality plays a role in pregnancy failure for woman of advanced maternal age and repeated implantation failure, it is important to evaluate the chromosome status before BT to reduce miscarriage rate.

Stork Fertility Center Stork Fertility Center Author

Comparison of the embryo development and clinical pregnancy rates between vitrified and fresh oocytes

Comparison of the embryo development and clinical pregnancy rates between vitrified and fresh oocytes
AuthorHsing-Hua Lai, Huai-Ling Wang, Wen-Yi Chiang, Yao-Cheng Huang, Saing-Chi Chen, Wan-Jung Hsieh, Chun-Chuan Chen, Chi-An Hsieh, Shih-Chieh Huang, Ya-Hui Hsu, Hsin-Hua Chou
EditorShih-Chieh Huang
Seminar name2012 TSRM
Keywordvitrification, cryo-oocyte, pregnancy rate
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In recent years, oocyte cryopreservation is mainly performed before oncological treatment, but rarely for infertile cause. For non-oncological purpose, such as single women with advanced age, autoimmune disorders, or for couples with male infertility, oocyte vitrification could retain the possibility of future utilization.
To assess the clinical practicality, we compared vitrified and fresh oocytes in their embryo development and pregnancy rates with our clinical data.

Stork Fertility Center Stork Fertility Center Author

Comparison of the obstetric outcome between fresh and vitrified-warmed blastocyst transfer

Comparison of the obstetric outcome between fresh and vitrified-warmed blastocyst transfer
AuthorHsing-Hua Lai, Huai-Ling Wang, Wen-Yi Chiang, Shih-Chieh Huang, Ya-Hui Hsu
EditorYa-Pei Pong
Seminar name2011 22th AOCOG
Keywordvitrification, blastocyst culture, pregnancy rate, live birth rate
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Objectives
To evaluate the effects of vitrification and embryo development on implantation rate, clinical and ongoing pregnancy rates along with live birth rate.



Methods
  •  A randomized, retrospective study
  •  Fresh and vitrified-warmed blastocyst transfer (BT)
  •  Statistical methods: Student t test and Yate’s continuity corrected χ-square
  •  Definition:
  1. Biochemical pregnancy: blood β-hCG > 5mIU/mL
  2. Clinical pregnancy: gestational sac observed under ultrasound at 6-8 weeks of pregnancy
  3. Ongoing pregnancy: pregnant after 5 months
  4. Implantation rate: gestational sac or fetal heart beat (FHB) per transferred embryo



Conclusions
Our preliminary data suggested that:
1.          Vitrification had no obvious adverse effect on embryos. In fact, it could be beneficial to increase cumulative pregnancy rate.
2.          The implantation rate and pregnancy rate after D6 BT were both lower than D5 BT, implying the importance of embryo growth rate.

Stork Fertility Center Stork Fertility Center Author

First successful pregnancy after preimplantation genetic diagnosis for Hemophilia A in Asia

First successful pregnancy after preimplantation genetic diagnosis for Haemophilia A in Asia
AuthorHsing-Hua Lai, Huai-Ling Wang, Shih-Chieh Huang, Wen-Yi Chiang
EditorHui-Ling Kao
Seminar name2010 TSRM
KeywordPGD, inherited disease, IVF
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    Haemophilia A, the most common X-linked disorder affecting males, results from deficient or defective coagulation factor VIII which impairs the coagulation cascade (Fig. 1) and causes bleeding symptoms. In Taiwan, there are about 1000 haemophilia patients, where the cost on medication is 2,300 million dollars per year. Different types of factor VIII gene mutation have been characterized and among which, intron 22 inversion is the most seen and responsible for 45% of severe HA cases.
    The conventional way for HA patients to have an unaffected child is to play “reproductive roulette” and give up all male babies. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) provides an alternative strategy for couples carrying HA to conceive a healthy child without sex selection hence to reduce the mental pressure and medical cost. This technique can be performed on blastomere or trophectoderm cells. The DNA in each cell is analyzed for a specific gene mutation, i.e. factor VIII gene in HA. In recent years, the need of PGD for HA is increasing.

Stork Fertility Center Stork Fertility Center Author

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