Infertility: Oocyte shortage for donation may be overcome in a programme with anonymous permutation of related donors

Abstract

Difficulty in recruiting donors plays a crucial role in oocyte donation programmes. We report here an original strategy to overcome this problem, consisting of sharing out anonymous oocytes between recipients, which has markedly improved treatment efficiency by avoiding freezing or destruction of supernumerary embryos. Each patient received part of the supply of oocytes from several donors in four successive cycles, while each donor underwent oocyte retrieval only once. This strategy led to one pregnancy per treated donor, increased treatment efficacy by 300%, and reduced dramatically the oocyte shortage at our centre. The system avoids wastage of the rare and precious donated oocytes, increases the chance of pregnancy for each related recipient and even permits the inclusion of some recipients without related donors.