Extend Fertility Launches Research Center to Close the Fertility Education Gap

DENVER, Oct. 8, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Extend Fertility, a one-of-a-kind, specialty egg freezing practice in Manhattan, announced the launch of their Center for Fertility Research and Education (CFRE) today at the 2018 American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) Scientific Congress & Expo. The center will conduct targeted research and develop educational initiatives designed to close the gap in knowledge about fertility and fertility preservation in the United States.

CFRE's mission is to enhance both patients' and healthcare professionals' understanding of fertility, including technological advancements and outcomes in the fertility preservation field, through high quality research. The center will establish evidence-based guidelines for counseling women about fertility decline and best practices for clinical treatment. Furthermore, the center will hold public educational programs to teach about and encourage conversation around age-related fertility decline and fertility preservation options.

At ASRM, CFRE will be presenting their first five abstracts which can be viewed here:

1. Association between cytoplasmic granularity of oocytes and age in patients undergoing elective oocyte cryopreservation
2. Assisted reproduction care concentration trends in the United States
3. Probability of attaining a 60% aged-based live birth rate (LBR) with the first elective oocyte cryopreservation (EOC) cycle
4. Maturity rates (MR) with GNRH-Agonist (GNRH-A) trigger in normal, low and very low responders pursuing elective oocyte cryopreservation (EOC)
5. Motivations and perceived barriers to care in women seeking information regarding elective oocyte cryopreservation (EOC)

These abstracts address a need for fact-based research that challenges the assumptions impacting how the field addresses the natural progression of female fertility and the need for education in the space.

With a fierce commitment to scientific principles, CFRE will help create the future of women's health, building on this foundation of knowledge.

"Throughout the past fifty years we have witnessed amazing innovations in the diagnosis and treatment of infertility, and yet the scientific community still has a lot to learn about natural fertility progression. So much of how we address these issues is based on assumptions about what women know, what they want to know, about how they think and what choices they'd make. It's time we change that," said Bat-Sheva L. Maslow, MD, MSCTR, FACOG, Director of CFRE. "We are excited to launch CFRE to fill that void with scientific research and create evidence-based guidelines to help both healthcare providers and the women they treat."

CFRE will fill a research gap in three distinct areas:

• Identifying the factors that impact women's thinking, understanding and decision-making with respect to their family building goals
• Understanding the natural biologic progression of fertility throughout women's reproductive years
•  Identifying best practices for utilization of fertility preservation for young healthy women

"With these initiatives we can equip women with the best understanding of their bodies, offer doctors evidence-based guidelines on how to counsel women and feel confident as fertility specialists that we are providing women with the best possible care," said Dr. Maslow.

The research team is led by Dr. Maslow with a clinical advisory team including Extend Fertility Chief Clinical Officer Joshua U. Klein, MD, FACOG, and Chief Laboratory Advisor Leslie Ramirez, PhD. The research is reviewed by IntegReview, an independent institutional/ethical review board.

For more information on CFRE, please visit: https://centerforfertilityresearch.org/. At the ASRM Scientific Congress & Expo, you can visit CFRE's poster abstract sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday from 6:30-8:00am.

About Extend Fertility:
Extend Fertility is the first fertility practice dedicated entirely to women who want to preserve their fertility for the future. The fertility practice has revolutionized egg freezing by offering services at significantly lower prices in a specialized atmosphere designed around the lifestyle and goals of women who want to freeze their eggs for use later in life. Until now, most practices that offer egg freezing have been focused on treating infertility. Based in New York City, the team is dedicated first and foremost to educating women on fertility and egg freezing options and then offering a revolutionary service with an outcomes-focused pricing model that makes egg freezing more affordable and accessible to women at any stage of life.

For more information, please visit extendfertility.com.

Media contact: KWT Global, [email protected]

SOURCE Extend Fertility