Genesis Fertility Clinic Blog
searching: “freezing”
April 16, 2009
How long can you freeze sperm?
People often ask “how long can sperm or embryos be frozen?” and “do sperm or embryos go bad if they are frozen too long?” Well, the good news is it seems that sperm and embryos can be frozen for many years without any deterioration. They are frozen in liquid nitrogen (-196 C) which is so cold that all cell processes stop – cells don’t change at this temperature.
In March of this year a healthy baby girl was born in the US using sperm that was frozen 21 years earlier. The father had frozen sperm at age 16 before undergoing chemotherapy for leukemia. His wife underwent the IVF process and, using ICSI, her eggs were fertilized with his frozen sperm. There have been other cases of prolonged sperm freezing with excellent outcomes like this one. The longest successful sperm freeze to my knowledge was 28 years.
Embryos typically don’t get the chance to be frozen for very long as couples typically don’t do IVF, freeze embryos and then wait more than a decade to use them. There have been a half-a-dozen case reports of couples who have used embryos frozen for more than a decade and the outcomes was just as good as for embryos frozen for less time.
A nice study of over 11,000 embryos frozen between 1986 and 2007 published in 2008 concluded “Cryostorage duration did not adversely affect postthaw survival or pregnancy outcome in IVF or oocyte donation patients.” Further, the children born from frozen sperm and embryos seem to be just as healthy as those that were created with IVF/ICSI and transferred fresh, not frozen, into women.
So, overall freezing sperm and embryos doesn’t seem to harm them and they can be frozen for many years. Sperm and egg freezing gives couples options for creating their families over time.
Dr. Beth Taylor, MD, FRCSC
Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility