6 YEAR FOLLOW-UP OF CRYOPRESERVED HUMAN EMBRYOS

In 1987, we became aware of the importance of remaining in contact wit h couples whose embryos had been cryopreserved for >1 year. As a resul t, a questionnaire was designed to follow the fate of these embryos. O f 407 couples with cryopreserved embryos, 262 couples opted to use the m within 1 year with the intention of fulfilling a parental plan. The remaining 145 couples were questioned by six successive questionnaires sent out between 1987 and 1992. By the end of the study, 336 of the 4 07 couples (82.5%) had chosen to utilize their embryos in a parental p lan. In most cases, the maximum delay of response (5 years according t o the Council of State) was respected. The remaining 71 couples (17.5% ) either abandoned the parental plan or had not given any information by the end of the study. Initially, anonymous donation to another coup le was chosen in preference to destroying the surplus embryos (32 vers us 18 couples, P<0.05). Latterly, however, these differences have bala nced out (24 versus 28, not significant). Only those couples who initi ally opted to donate embryos to another couple changed their attitude in later years. In the long run, 62 couples decided not to pursue thei r parental plan; of these, 24 couples chose to make a gift to another couple, 28 couples opted for destruction, and 10 chose to make a gift to research. Nine couples (out of 71) declined to make a decision, but they had all achieved a pregnancy during an in-vitro fertilization (I VF) attempt. Three of these were lost to follow-up, i.e. 0.7% of all c ouples benefiting from the freezing technique.