Outcome for Donors and Recipients in Two Egg-sharing Policies

Objective: To assess the effect of two different donation policies on results of egg-sharing.

Design: Retrospective analysis.

Setting: Tertiary referral center.

Patient(s): One hundred five donor-recipient pairs participating in an egg-sharing program between 1998 and 2001.

Intervention(s): Egg-sharing was performed according to policy A (retrieval of at least 12 oocytes, with more oocytes allocated to the donor) or policy B (retrieval of at least 8 oocytes, with equal distribution of oocytes between donors and recipients).

Main Outcome Measure(s): Delivery rate and cycle cancellation rate.

Result(s): Policy B resulted in a decreased cycle cancellation rate in the recipient group compared with policy A (9.7% vs. 29.7%, respectively; P<or=.01). No significant difference in delivery rate per fresh transfer was observed between policy A and policy B in donors (30.2% vs. 27.8%, respectively) or recipients (28.2% vs. 25.7%, respectively).

Conclusion(s): Decreasing the number of oocytes required to perform egg sharing from 12 to 8 and dividing the oocytes equally between donors and recipients significantly reduces the cycle cancellation rate while it does not appear to affect adversely the probability of delivery.