AN OOCYTE DONATION PROGRAM WITH GOSERELIN DOWN-REGULATION OF VOLUNTARY DONORS

Background. In ovum donation programs oocytes can be requested from in fertile women going through an in vitro fertilization cycle. Currently , when embryos can be cryopreserved, these donors have virtually disap peared. Instead, most donors have been healthy fertile volunteers will ing to go through an IVF attempt solely for the purpose of donating al l oocytes. Methods. Sixty-four patients had 93 started cycles of oocyt e donation from 59 donors, Twenty recipients had primary ovarian failu re, 24 had secondary ovarian failure, 15 had had repeated failures in earlier IVF attempts and five were carriers of genetic diseases. The d onors were 51 healthy volunteers recruited through the press. Eight pa tients from an IVF program donated excess oocytes. Donors were not pai d and their mean age was 30 years. To minimize discomfort of the treat ment, a long-acting GnRH-agonist, goserelin, was used for down-regulat ion. Results. The pregnancy rate per transfer with fresh embryos was 2 8.4% (23/81) and with frozen-thawed embryos, 17% (3/18). Twenty-one he althy infants have been born including one set of triplets and three s ets of twins. Nine pregnancies ended in abortion and one in intrauteri ne fetal death. The most common complications of pregnancy were pre-ec lampsia and pregnancy-induced hypertension (41.2%, 7/17). Ten of 17 pa tients delivered by cesarean section (58.8%). Conclusion. It was possi ble, through the press, to obtain highly motivated oocyte donors, who go through IVF treatment solely for altruistic reasons. Oocyte recipie nts appear to have many complications in their pregnancies. Until more data are available, these patients need a high standard of obstetric care.