Workshop A
Egg donation is only a second-best choice: What can be done to offer patients best outcomes with their first choice – their own eggs?
Though most infertility patients clearly prefer conception with autologous over donor oocytes, utilization increases of donor egg cycles in the U.S. have, over the past decade, outpaced fresh autologous cycles. A principal cause is the rapid aging of women having children, with age 42 and above, proportionally, representing the most rapidly growing age-group. A second important factor is the outcome difference, with autologous cycles in most infertile women offering clearly lower pregnancy and live birth chances than donor egg cycles. But of increasing importance is the hesitancy of most IVF centers to even attempt IVF in women above age 42 and in younger women with low functional ovarian reserve. This workshop will address how potential pregnancy and live birth chances in many women are generally underestimated, and how they can be maximized.
Chair: Norbert Gleicher, MD
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| 2:00 p.m. – 2:05 p.m. |
Introduction
Norbert Gleicher, MD |
| 2:05 p.m. – 2:25 p.m. |
Why and how worldwide trends in utilization of eggs donation differ
Vitaly A. Kushnir, MD |
| 2:25 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. |
Who decides whether a patient uses her own or donor eggs?
David H. Barad, MD, MS |
| 2:45 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. |
Treating infertile women with use of their own eggs who nobody else wants to treat
Norbert Gleicher, MD |
| 3:15 p.m. – 3:45 p.m. |
Discussion |
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Workshop B
Avoiding unproven add-ons, and getting back to the basics in IVF
The IVF field over the last decade not only failed to improve further outcomes, as it had done for over two decades before, but live birth rates around the world have fallen significantly. Though there are different reasons for these trends, the increasing utilization of, what Prof. Joyce Harper and co-authors in a widely read recent article called unproven “adjuncts” (Hum Reprod 2017), clearly play an important role.
Chair: Raoul Orvieto, MD
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| 2:00 p.m. – 2:05 p.m. |
Introduction
Raoul Orvieto, MD |
| 2:05 p.m. – 2:35 p.m. |
Returning to logic in the IVF laboratory
David F. Albertini, PhD |
| 2:35 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. |
The effects of PGS/PGT-A on IVF outcomes
Raoul Orvieto, MD |
| 3:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. |
Clinical add-ons to IVF: Can we expect a benefit?
Andrea Weghofer, MD, PhD, MS, MBA |
| 3:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m. |
Discussion |
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Workshop C
Is it “fresh” or is it “frozen,” and is it “slow-freezing” or “vitrification?”
Cryopreservation of gametes, embryos and ovarian as well as testicular tissues has in recent years greatly improved, giving rise to the establishment of commercial (frozen) egg banks and to a number of suggested practice changes in IVF, including the recommendation that embryos no longer be transferred fresh but after cryopreservation in a subsequent cycle. Concomitantly vitrification has mostly replaced slow-freezing. This workshop will offer an objective assessment of published data and help embryologists as well as IVF practitioners in guiding their IVF cycle management on whether fresh eggs and embryos really do not differ in IVF outcomes from frozen eggs and embryos, and whether vitrification really is superior to slow-freezing when it comes to gametes, embryos or tissues.
Chair: David F. Albertini, PhD |
| 4:15 p.m. – 4:20 p.m. |
Introduction
David F. Albertini, PhD |
| 4:20 p.m. – 4:40 p.m. |
Is it true, as The New England Journal of Medicine recently reported, that pregnancy rates with fresh or frozen embryo transfers are the same?
David H. Barad, MD, MS |
| 4:40 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. |
Are frozen donor eggs in donor-recipient cycles really the equal of fresh oocytes?
Vitaly A. Kushnir, MD |
| 5:00 p.m. – 5:20 p.m. |
Is vitrification really better than slow freezing?
David F. Albertini, PhD |
| 5:20 p.m. – 5:40 p.m. |
Slow-freezing or vitrification of ovarian tissue?
Pasquale Patrizio, MD, MS |
| 5:40 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. |
Discussion |
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Workshop D
From the Brivanlou Laboratory at Rockefeller University, seeing human embryos like never before
New greatly enhanced imaging techniques allow for observations of human embryos at pre- and post-implantation stages at literally single-cell level, – both metabolically and histologically. This allows rapidly advancing understanding of early human development. We in this workshop will present a number of examples of anatomical as well as metabolic assessments of early-stage human embryos, which in an in vitro implantation model not only demonstrate in 3-D all known features of embryo development after implantation but also allow for distinct cell differentiations even within early embryonic structures, like the trophectoderm or inner cell mass.
Chair: Gist Croft, PhD
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| 4:15 p.m. – 4:20 p.m. |
Introduction
Gist Croft, PhD |
| 4:20 p.m. – 4:50 p.m. |
Watching the embryo implant
Gist Croft, PhD |
| 4:50 p.m. – 5:10 p.m. |
Embroids and other in vitro tools to study early human embryo development
Mijo Simunovic, PhD |
| 5:10 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. |
How aneuploid is the human blastocyst-stage embryo
Tiago Rito, PhD |
| 5:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. |
Discussion |
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