Eggs are not follicles
IVF patients often don’t understand the difference between
follicles ( which are affectionately called
“follies” ) and eggs . Doctors are sometimes
responsible for this confusion , because we usually loosely refer to the
follicles we see on your ultrasound scan as eggs. This is especially true
during IUI cycles; or when the scans are being done by a sonographer or
technician. When she sees that your ovaries have responded well to the
superovulation, she will often say – Good, your eggs are growing well.
In reality, eggs are microscopic structures which cannot be
seen on ultrasound scans. They are only 100 microns ( 0.1 mm) in size, and can only be seen by the
embryologist in the IVF lab when he scans the follicular fluid the doctor sends
him during the egg retrieval under the stereozoom microscope .
Ultrasound scans allow us to track the growth of the
follicles in your ovaries. Follicles are
seen as tiny black bubbles on the scan, because they contain follicular fluid.
They range in size from 4 mm – 25 mm; and the eggs grow within these follicles.
However, not all follicles contain eggs ,
which is why the correlation between the number of follicles seen on the IVF ultrasound
scans and the number of eggs which are actually retrieved is not perfect.
When all the follicles grow at the same rate ( a synchronous
cohort), then timing the HCG is much easier. However, often the growth is asynchronous;
and some follicles may become big...
Source: The Patient's Doctor - Category: Obstetricians and Gynecologists Source Type: blogs
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