Dr. Potter, Huntington Reproductive Center

February 2007 - Posts

• PGD and IVF success rates

  I am pleased to answer any questions that users might have regarding MicroSort and/or IVF for gender selection, so go ahead and send them....  I am back from 'Ski Week' which is a mid-winter week off for kids in my area.  We went skiing in Deer Valley, Utah with several other families.  What a beautiful place and boy did we get some snow.  My 5 year old was completely fearless going banzai down the blue runs.  I finally got her to slow down and start doing some turns.  People are always interested in what I do and I met a number of people in Deer Valley that were interested in gender selection.  It is always amazing to me that highly educated people have no idea what so ever that gender selection techniques that work are actually available.  Increasing awareness is the key to increasing acceptance.  I will start by answering the most common question posed to me by patients interested in gender selection:  Does PGD decrease IVF success rates?  The short answer is ' no'.  The truth is that PGD does not seem to lower pregnancy rates in experienced hands.  Nor does it improve pregnancy rates.  In my experience, IVF/PGD pregnancy rates are the same as IVF only pregnancy rates for patients of a given age and peak FSH level and even higher in gender selection patients than in the general fertility population.  Of the 300+ PGD cycles done at HRC in 2006, more than half were done solely for gender selection in patients with no fertility problems.  Pregnancy rates are obviously going to be better in a fertile population like gender selection patients than the general fertility population.  The way pregnancy rates are reported is misleading so beware.  The whole idea of giving patients access to pregnancy rates is so that they can predict the probability that they will be successful in their own cycle.  The problem is that very few patients will have the actual pregnancy rate listed for their age group.  That is because the data as reported by SART includes all patients in a given age group regardless of their prognosis, peak FSH, number of embryos transferred or indication for IVF.   For example:  if pregnancy rate for a clinic in <35 year olds is 42%, what does this mean to you?  Answer:  nothing.  YOUR pregnancy chances can only be determined with a complete assessment of your ovarian reserve (Clomid challenge test for example), your age and indication for IVF.  The pregnancy rate for <35 yo patient with a normal Clomid challenge test (CCT) is twice that of patients with abnormal CCT results.  Which group are you in?  Pregnancy rates for <35 yo with normal CCT and no fertility problems (i.e. gender selection) is 10% higher than the rate for <35 yo with normal CCT that have never been pregnant.  Yet all of these categories are lumped together by SART so the "pregnancy rate" is really an average of the good and bad prognosis patients and represents a number between these two realities.  Send questions and comments.  Talk to you soon.  Dr. Potter   Posted Feb 26 2007, 07:22 PM by Dr. Potter with 9 comment(s) Filed under: PGD, gender selection, Daniel Potter, Dr. Potter, HRC Fertility, IVF success

• Background and Response to ACOG position

  Hello everyone, I am Dr. Daniel Potter.  I practice at the Huntington Reproductive Center and MicroSort facility in Laguna Hills, CA.  Our goal at HRC/MS is to provide personalized, compassionate and state of the art care to couples seeking gender selection as well as other fertility issues.  Being at one of only two facilities in the world with both MicroSort and PGD, I have particular expertise that I hope will be of interest to the users. I want to thank Maureen for allowing me to share my experience with you.   Here is a little background about me.  I am 42 years old.  I am married with two daughters (5 and 8) both conceived through IVF.  I am lobbying my wife for a third child using gender selection for male but she is not ready for a third at this time.  I grew up here in southern California, attending La Canada High School and USC for both undergraduate and medical school.  I completed my residency in OB/Gyn at Women's Hospital (USC) in Los Angeles and my fellowship in reproductive endocrinology at University of Texas Health Sciences Center with Dr. Robert Schenken.  I joined HRC in 1998 and have been fortunate to be associated with great doctors and staff here.   I am going to be posting to my blog as time permits.  The purpose of this blog is to help the users of the board obtain accurate information about gender selection, MicroSort and PGD.  I am particularly interested in helping couples determine their true prognosis when attempting gender selection using advanced technology.  I welcome your comments and will attempt to respond to any questions you may have.    Gender selection is an area of particular importance to me.  I view gender selection as a reproductive choice that should be made by informed couples.  I was, therefore, very disappointed with the recent ACOG release stating that gender selection of any sort is tantamount to gender discrimination.  This is unfortunate change in position for ACOG.  Their previous position was that pre-conception methods, such as MicroSort, were fine if they could be proven safe and efficacious.  ACOG was previously only opposed to PGD for gender selection.  It is interesting that gender selection opponents have abandoned their previous arguments that somehow bestowed rights on the embryos.  They are also no longer saying that it is unethical to put someone through fertility treatments for the purpose of gender selection because it is too risky.  These positions were too hard for them to defend.  They have now switched to the position that gender selection is wrong because it may be used to perpetuate gender decimation.  This position completely disregards the fact that very little gender selection is actually done in the context that they are concerned about.  I have a hard time seeing gender discrimination in the case of the married couple with 2 boys that wants a girl.  This is 80% or more of the cases that we perform.  I am interested to hear your thoughts.  I will post more at a later time.  Dr. Potter Posted Feb 08 2007, 11:28 AM by Dr. Potter with 3 comment(s) Filed under: PGD, gender selection, MicroSort, Daniel Potter, IVF, Dr. Potter, GSN