In January 2018, a study of My Duc Hospital, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam was published in the world's most prestigious medical journal The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). This original article titled “IVF Transfer of Fresh or Frozen Embryos in Women without Polycystic Ovaries” based on the study of 782 women who performed In Vitro Fertilization. Researchers showed that the pregnancy rates and the fertilization rates of couples after In Vitro Fertilization with fresh embryos or frozen embryos are similar. The study is based on the following questions:
⦁ Is the effect of frozen embryo transfer higher than that of fresh embryos?
⦁ Is it worth transferring all patients to this method?
⦁ When embryos are frozen, is pregnancy as good as fresh embryo transfer?
⦁ Is there any related complications in pregnancy? IVF patients want to become pregnant as soon as possible. When embryos are frozen, the chance of becoming pregnant will be delayed by at least one month. For many patients, doing IVF is not only an effective issue but also a cost related problem. The cost of frozen embryos is higher than that of fresh embryos.
The study was conducted by doctors at My Duc Hospital, Ho Chi Minh City as well as Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine and Pharmacy in collaboration with Robert Normal from the Robinson Research Institute in Australia. Participants of the study were women who did not have polycystic ovary syndrome, each of whom performed 1 in vitro fertilization using fresh embryos or all fresh embryos frozen. Professor Nguyen Van Tuan is a member of Garvan Institute of Medical Research, a lecturer at the University of New South Wales in Australia, and a member of the review board of The New England Journal of Medicine, stated that this is the first time that Vietnamese researchers and publishers were able to independently raise scientifically relevant ideas, conduct, and publish their research. Professor Tuan considers this an honor and a great academic accomplishment for the Vietnamese scientific community. IVF doctors will now know how to respond when faced with these two choices. Furthermore, patients are able to make better informed decisions with higher confidence regarding their reproductive health.

Dr. Lan and her research team