IVF with sperm donation is a treatment option where donor sperm is used during the IVF procedure. Patients who are suitable candidates for IVF treatment using donor sperm at Near East University Hospital IVF Centre can be broadly identified as follows:
Couples with male factor infertility where the male patient has been diagnosed with azoospermia and no live sperm cells have been found in the ejaculate, or very poor sperm function is present, which suggests that the sperm does not possess fertilizing qualities. In such cases, the next best alternative becomes using donor sperm, which also necessitates the use of IVF treatment so that donor sperm can be fused with the female patient’s oocytes.
Couples where the male partner has a known inheritable genetic disease and is at the risk of passing this disease onto his offspring via natural conception with his own sperm sample; in this group of patients, sperm donation is a solution. Depending on the nature of genetic condition, some of these genetic problems can be prevented via “Pre-Implantation Genetic Screening” by screening the embryos for chromosomal aneuploidies or for single gene disorders.
Single women who would like to become parents via donor sperm.
At this point, if you are reading this page, it is highly likely that you have either had a semen analysis done, which suggested “azoospermia” as diagnosis, or have already undergone a number of IVF treatments with own sperm sample, which failed to fertilize the oocytes in an optimal manner. Alternatively, you may be a single woman exploring this option to become a single parent. For the former groups of patients, it would be safe to assume that a semen testing has already been performed. If so, it will be important to e-mail or fax it over to our specialists for an assessment first. For some patient groups who do have live cells in their ejaculate but cannot achieve pregnancy due to high level of sperm DNA damage, the “MicroFluidic Chip” can yield a successful separation of healthy sperm cells to be used during IVF treatment.
Overview of IVF with Sperm Donation
Low sperm count, poor motility, or abnormal morphology of sperm can make it very difficult to conceive with the male partner’s own sperm cells. In some cases, live sperm cells may be totally absent in the ejaculate or the existing cells are immature and do not possess fertilizing qualities. These cases will necessitate the use of a sperm donor for pregnancy to be achieved. This is a procedure by which the egg of a female patient is fertilized using IVF/ICSI treatment, with donor sperm that has been donated and kept frozen in a sperm bank. The resulting embryo may then develop into a fetus inside the female patient’s uterus. This way, a couple gets a chance to conceive a child who has genetic traits of one of the parents and the mother can get to experience pregnancy.
Sperm Donor IVF Treatment program at Near East University Hospital IVF Centre works very much like the IVF/ICSI treatment program outlined in our “IVF/ICSI Treatment” section. The only difference is, instead of using the male patient’s own sperm sample, certified donor sperm is used. Other than this, the five step IVF program outlined in the IVF/ICSI treatment section is followed in an identical manner. Before we can identify the right treatment protocol and before we can proceed with treatment, it is very important that an effective assessment is made in the light of tests and screening.
Before attempting treatment using a sperm donor, patients may want to consider surgical sperm retrieval methods as the last resort. In some cases, even though the male patient is not able to produce sperm through ejaculation, we might still be able to obtain sperm from within the testes or the epididymis through minor surgical sperm extraction surgery. The selection of patients who will be offered such a procedure can be identified via some specific tests done to the male patient. In such cases, we simply follow the regular IVF/ICSI treatment program. When the female patient is ready for her oocyte pick-up (egg retrieval), the male patient is also scheduled for his sperm extraction operation. The sperm extraction operation aims to look for immature sperm cells that are close to maturity and may have the capability to fertilize the eggs to be retrieved from the female partner. If all goes well and sperm cells are found at the time of operation, then the patients are able to proceed with treatment using the male partner’s sperm sample. If the surgical retrieval methods fail to provide any live sperm cells, then the patients will have the option to proceed with donor sperm. It should be known that the quality of sperm obtained through surgical procedures are likely to be lower compared to regular sperm cells found in the ejaculate (as only mature spermatooza are present in the ejaculate where surgical retrieval obtains the immature sperm that has not reached the ejaculation stage). For this end, we often do not recommend freezing sperm obtained through these procedures. Instead, the sample should be used fresh for best outcome.
Who Are Sperm Donors?
At Near East University Hospital IVF Centre, we only use certified sperm from well-known and accredited international cryo banks in Europe. Due to donor anonymity regulations in Northern Cyprus, we can only provide you with certain information about your sperm donor. We are able to disclose information such as height, weight, educational attainments, skin, eye and hair color of the donor as well as other social characteristics. However, we do not disclose any information about the identity of the donor. All donor sperm samples purchased from the sperm banks are selected to be anonymous. We also do not accept walk-in sperm donations from local population.
Given that all sperm samples we use at our clinic come from certified sperm banks, all sperm donors comply with international standards of sperm donation which include physical assessment, infectious disease screening, genetic screening as well as family medical history check.
How Are Patients Matched with Sperm Donors?
Even though patients are not provided with personal information about sperm donors, we make sure that the matching process is carried out in an optimal manner in order to offer you with donor selections who match your physical and intellectual requirements. For an accurate donor matching to be in place, our donor coordinator will ask that you fill out and send us our form. In this form, we ask about your own physical features as well as any other features. Based on this information, we will be able to shortlist our sperm donor pool and offer you suitable donor options to choose from. The Basic information required for sperm donor matching are as follows:
-Male partner’s physical features (skin, hair and eye color)
-Male and female partner’s blood types
-Any other specification you would like to set forth
Additional specifications such as education/occupation and social characteristics can also be used as parameters but you should keep in mind that more specifications we have, the harder it will be to match you up with a donor. While education, occupation and physical features can be acceptable criteria, having too many restrictions on your donor search can mean a very long period of wait.
How to Begin Treatment?
IVF/ICSI Treatment using donor sperm is very similar to standard IVF/ICSI treatment steps identified in the relevant section. The only difference between standard IVF/ICSI treatment and treatment with donor sperm is the fact that the male partner’s own sperm sample is used in the former and donor sperm is used in the latter. However, the treatment stages and the medication protocol that the female patient needs to undergo will be similar in both treatment types.
The starting point of any IVF treatment is infertility testing. If you have already undergone infertility testing recently (within the past six months), then we will be able to accept them as current and will review them for an assessment. If you do not have current test results, then the following will be the starting point:
– FSH, LH, Estradiol, Prolactin, TSH and AMH hormone testing for the female partner. Some of these tests are ideally carried out on day 2 or day 3 of menstrual period. These are the hormone tests which help us identify your ovarian reserves and the level of your fertility so that we can precisely identify the medication regimen and the precise dose of medication that will optimize the outcome of your IVF treatment with us. The hormones chosen to be done for the patient is specialized up to the clinical information of the female patients.
– Again, on the very same day, we ask that a baseline TV ultrasound scan is performed for ovarian and uterine assessment. We will want to know how many antral follicles you have in each ovary at the beginning of your menstrual period. This information is used to cross-check the hormone test results. The uterine assessment is required to make sure there are no visible problems in the uterus that can possibly interfere with a successful pregnancy. These problems include fibroids, polyps, free-fluids and structural problems with the uterus.
– If you have already undergone IVF treatment previously, information on previous testing and treatment will be very useful as they will provide us with important information such as your response to medication and quality of eggs and embryos obtained during treatment.
Once we have this information, we will be able to make an assessment of ovarian function and design your treatment accordingly. Given that majority of our patients come from abroad, we can design our treatments so that the preliminary work can be carried out locally in your country under our guidance and supervision. That way, we can minimize the length of your stay in Cyprus down to 6 days where we can finalize your treatment. Patients who would like to receive their entire treatment with us including pre-testing, scans and the medication stage, the entire treatment can be finalized within 18-20 days where we expect the patient to arrive here in Cyprus on day 1 of the menstrual period for assessment. Not every patient has the ability to get away from home for a total of 18-20 days. For this reason, we have established links between many IVF clinics and local doctors so that we can guide you through the preliminary work locally in your own country and you can come to Cyprus to finalize your treatment.
Cost of IVF using Donor Sperm at North Cyprus IVF Centre.
The cost includes your medical treatment, donor costs, consults and scans at our clinic. The following are not included in the cost of treatment:
-Cost of preliminary testing and scans with your local doctor (hormone testing, ultrasound scans) before your treatment program is initiated
-Cost of medication to be used during your treatment (actual cost depends on the dose to be administered based on hormone test results)
-Cost of infectious disease screening which needs to be performed by our own lab for safety precautionary measures in order to minimize the risk of cross-contamination in our lab due to blood-borne diseases.
-Your accommodation expenditures (please see alternative options of accommodation for the duration of your stay)
-Your airfare and personal expenditures during your stay in North Cyprus.
Our low cost sperm donor IVF treatment program at North Cyprus IVF offers high success rates with highest quality of service. For more information about sperm donor IVF treatment details, cost and other related information, please contact us.