Early outcomes of a municipally funded oocyte cryopreservation programme in Japan

Abstract

One factor explaining the declining birth rate in Japan is the social advancement of women. Women are delaying marriage and childbirth, with many then facing so-called ‘social infertility’. Advanced infertility treatment options, such as in vitro fertilization, are available, but the costs are high. Further, the success rates for ‘older’ women are only around 10%. We report the preliminary results of an oocyte cryopreservation programme promoted and subsidized by our city government. Citywide seminars were conducted to generate awareness of issues surrounding fertility. Among the total 81 attendees were women considering oocyte retrieval and the current practice of oocyte retrieval and cryopreservation and its associated risks were explained. Fifty-seven attendees, women under 34 years of age, were considered potential candidates for the procedure. These women wished to delay pregnancy for specific reasons, such as occupational demands. Twenty-six of these women expressed a definite desire for oocyte cryopreservation, and 19 have thus far completed the oocyte retrieval and cryopreservation procedure. Frozen MII oocytes have ranged in number from 3 to 22 per patient (mean ± SD, 8.3 ± 5.2). Outcomes thus far indicate that women whose fertility is at risk can be assisted by this fertility preservation method and that it will help address the problem of the declining birth rate in Japan.

Keywords:

• Oocyte cryopreservation
• social infertility
• vitrification
• in vitro fertilization
• oocyte aging

Acknowledgements

We wish to express our gratitude to Urayasu City for their financial support.

Disclosure statement

The study described herein was requested by the Health Promotion Department of Urayasu City, and an annual subsidy of 30,000,000 yen was provided by the local government to endow a three-year study, which was begun in April 2015. This endowed programme was named Department of Social Infertility Treatment and is located at Juntendo Urayasu Hospital. So all authors received a research grant from Urayasu City.