LOS ANGELES - Fertility researchers from the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine announced today that they have achieved America's first pregnancy of triplets resulting from frozen eggs.

It is also the first triplet pregnancy in the world using a woman's own frozen eggs, according to researchers from USC Fertility, a nonprofit fertility practice.

Silvia Fajardo, 31, of Los Angeles, is expected to deliver her fraternal triplets early next year.

Fajardo and her husband, Eric Alberto Urzua, 28, are part of an ongoing clinical trial to evaluate the efficiency of egg freezing.

"This study is very important for anyone who is longing for a family," Fajardo said. "We know there are many families in the world who have spent so many years, so many sad times, hoping for a family. This kind of treatment can make their dreams come true, as it did ours."

Dr. Richard Paulson, director of USC Fertility, said it was a "big surprise" to learn how many babies Fajardo is carrying.

"Suddenly, whammo, we've got triplets," he said.

Dr. John K. Jain, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Keck School and principal investigator of the study, said the technology is needed for women who might not otherwise have a way to conceive a child.

"Many young women diagnosed with cancer lose their fertility through cancer treatment. They lose their ability to have children in the future," Jain said. "Some women also undergo early menopause. This gives them the chance to still have a family."

Patients in the study are volunteers who need in vitro fertilization to conceive and who have agreed to have all their eggs frozen. The eggs are kept in liquid nitrogen, then thawed, inseminated and placed back in the patient's uterus.

In 1986, USC doctors achieved the conception of America's first baby born after embryo freezing, and in 1987, reported the first triplet pregnancy after frozen embryo transfer.

But the practice of cryopreserving eggs for future fertilization remains relatively rare — with only about 200 babies born worldwide through the technique, according to researchers.

The first pregnancy from a frozen egg was reported in 1986, while the world's only other triplet pregnancy from frozen eggs involved an egg donor and was reported in Buenos Aires in 1998.

Egg freezing has not yet been established as a standard fertility therapy, and must be evaluated through rigorous scientific testing and peer-reviewed studies.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine currently considers egg freezing investigational and recommends its use only through clinical trials. CNS-06-15-2005 17:14