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Association between donor gamete use and supernumerary embryo disposition decisions

  • Assisted Reproduction Technologies
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Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this study is to determine if donor gamete use is associated with patients’ decisions regarding disposition of supernumerary embryos.

Methods

Patients who intended to undergo an IVF cycle at a single academic center signed an embryo disposition consent form to indicate their disposition preferences for any supernumerary embryos. A retrospective chart review was performed to obtain the embryo disposition declarations and demographic information. The primary outcome was the distribution of embryo disposition choices between patients who used donor gametes compared to patients who did not use donor gametes. Fisher’s exact test was used to compare groups. Logistic regression models were created to determine the association between donor gamete use and disposition decision after adjusting for patient age, body mass index, and nulliparity.

Results

Five hundred six patients were included. Ninety-one (18.0%) patients used donor gametes [46 (9.0%) donor oocytes, 52 (10.3%) donor sperm]. Patients using donor gametes differed from those not using donor gametes when making decisions concerning death of the patient (P < 0.01), simultaneous death (P = 0.04), separation (P < 0.01), discontinuation of ART (P = 0.01), and time-limited storage (P < 0.01). Most patients, regardless of donor or autologous gamete use, awarded embryos to themselves or their partner if given the option. For patients who did not choose this option, excess embryos were generally awarded to research or discarded rather than donating to another couple. Patients using donor gametes were more likely to award embryos to research over discarding.

Conclusion

Patients using donor gametes made different choices regarding supernumerary embryo disposition compared to patients not using donor gametes.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during the study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Code availability

Not applicable.

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Funding

The authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, Duke Health Center, 5601 Arringdon Park Dr., Suite 210, Morrisville, NC, 27560, USA

    Shelun Tsai, Jenna S. Hynes, Douglas Raburn & Anne Z. Steiner

  2. Ronald O. Perelman and Claudia Cohen Center for Reproductive Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, 1305 York Avenue, 6th Floor, New York, NY, 10021, USA

    Shelun Tsai

  3. Duke University School of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, 8 Searle Center Drive, Durham, NC, 27710, USA

    Nicole Zanolli

Authors
  1. Shelun Tsai
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  2. Jenna S. Hynes
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  3. Nicole Zanolli
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  4. Douglas Raburn
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  5. Anne Z. Steiner
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. The research design was developed by Shelun Tsai, Jenna Hynes, Douglas Raburn, and Anne Stiner. Data collection was performed by Nicole Zanolli. The statistical analysis was performed by Shelun Tsai and Anne Steiner. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Shelun Tsai and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shelun Tsai.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval

This study was granted exempt status by the Institutional Review Board of Duke University because no identifiable private information was collected.

Consent to participate

This was a retrospective cohort study and additional consents were not applicable. No identifiable private information was collected.

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Not applicable.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Tsai, S., Hynes, J.S., Zanolli, N. et al. Association between donor gamete use and supernumerary embryo disposition decisions. J Assist Reprod Genet 40, 371–379 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-022-02690-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-022-02690-y

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