Embryo change advocated

Press, 1 February 1986, Page 11

Embryo change advocated

NZPA-AP New York Freezing unfertilised human eggs rather than embryos should become the preferred technique for test-tube fertilisations within the year, a step that will avoid the ethical dilemmas of storing frozen embryos, says an Australian researcher.

The well-publicised case in Australia in which two frozen embryos were left by a couple killed in an airplane crash is "a good example of an ethical difficulty that would not exist if you were just using eggs,” said Dr Alan Trounson, director of the Centre for Early Human Development at Monash University In Melbourne. The problems also included what to do with frozen embryos if the parents changed their minds about going ahead with pregnancy, and whether

unused embryos could be discarded, he said. Embryos are frozen in test-tube fertilisations because when a woman is given drugs to produce more than one egg, she may produce a dozen. Rather than, implanting all the embryos that result in the laboratory, risking multiple births, specialists freeze some embryos for later implantation. ; If unfertilised eggs were frozen instead, they could later be thawed, fertilised, grown in the laboratory and placed back in the woman for pregnancy, Dr Trounson said.

One successful pregnancy already has: resulted in Australia from an egg that was fertilised after freezing, and other clinical trials of egg-freez-ing have begun, said Dr Trounson.