Cyprus Offers Safe and Legal PGD and PGS to International Patients

Cyprus Offers Safe and Legal PGD and PGS to International Patients

Some say children are the issue of our love, not the product of our wills. Great value should be put on the unconditional nature of parental love. But others argue, and enjoy the fact that they can choose the sex of their baby. Many couples find strength in making major life decisions together, including the decision to have children, which can be taken a step further with gender selection. 

Choosing PGD is never an easy decision to make, especially if you have moral dilemmas, but when you are tired of just dreaming of a perfect family, the next step is to find the right fertility clinic you trust and which will help you gain your little corner of heaven on earth, which is that beautiful family.

Gender selection, or sex selection, is a fertility procedure used to choose the gender of a baby prior to conception and it is officially legal in North Cyprus.

Who are candidates for PGD/PGS?

PGD is recommended for women or couples who are at risk of passing on a known genetic abnormality to their children. The process reduces the risk of a child inheriting a genetic disorder and minimizes the risk of late-term miscarriage and pregnancy termination by only implanting healthy and normal embryos into the mother's uterus.

In particular, candidates for PGD include couples with history of recurrent pregnancy loss due to genetic disorders, couples with repeated IVF failure, men with severe male factor infertility, couples with a child who has a genetic disease and are at high risk for having another, couples with a family history of X-linked disorders, couples with chromosome translocations (a condition in which a small piece of one chromosome switches places with a small piece of another chromosome), which can cause implantation failure, recurrent pregnancy loss, advanced maternal age.

Couples with genetic disorders should obtain adequate counseling before undergoing the PGD technique.

PGD with IVF in North Cyprus

Patients who undergo in vitro fertilization (IVF) because of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) require different clinical management than those who come in because of infertility alone. PGD adds a "fourth dimension" to the emotional aspect of a patients' assisted reproductive technology treatment. It significantly decreases the number of embryos available for transfer by 25 to 81%, and therefore ovarian stimulation for IVF with PGD should be tailored individually, taking into account patients' safety and estimated ovarian reserve.

In gender selection using IVF and PGD, embryos are created from the couple's eggs and sperm. On the third day after fertilization, one or two cells are removed from the embryos to be analyzed for its chromosomal makeup. Then, up to two embryos that are free from abnormalities and have the desired gender are transferred to the woman’s uterus to implant. If successful, the procedure will result in pregnancy. Although the purpose of PGD is to diagnose genetic diseases, many couples use this procedure for family balancing. PGD can test for more than 100 different genetic conditions.

Availability and prices

There is widespread debate internationally about whether sex selection for family balancing reasons, rather than medical reasons, is ethical. Though gender selection has gained tremendous popularity in recent years, it remains a controversial infertility treatment that is not legal in many parts of the world, such as Canada, Taiwan, India, Thailand, China, Switzerland and Turkey.

The UK allows for PGD to be performed to detect severe genetic diseases and tissue type matching for savior siblings under strict criteria, but does not allow for gender selection. In Hungary, PGD is allowed in case of severe hereditary diseases (when genetic risk is above 10%). In 2010, the Federal Court of Justice of Germany ruled that PGD can be used in exceptional cases.

Interested individuals wishing to use pre-implantation screening can travel to USA, Panama, Colombia, Argentina, North Cyprus, Greece, Ukraine, Russia and Georgia.

The cost of PGD is typically split into two parts: procedural costs (consultations, laboratory testing, egg collection, embryo transfer, ultrasound scans, and blood tests) and drug costs (for ovarian stimulation and embryo transfer).

Prices for PGD/PGS vary from country to country mainly due to economical factors. In East European countries, the costs vary from $2,000 to $9,000, while in South America starts from $2,000 to $4,000. PGD costs about $4000 to $8000 in the US, in addition to the other IVF costs which can vary from $700 and $11,000. In Europe, IVF costs vary from $500 to $7,000.

The cost of infertility treatment abroad varies from up to $8,000 (approximately £5,000 or €6,000) per IVF cycle in the United States, to as low as $2,500 in the Czech Republic and Latvia. On average, IVF treatment in the major infertility treatment destinations costs between $3,000 and $6,000 per cycle. In addition to this cost, you will normally have to pay for hormonal treatment that is used to promote the production of multiple eggs for in vitro fertilisation. Again, these will vary in price, from as little as $600 (£400 or €460) in Turkey to over $3,000 in Canada.

If you are using donor eggs or sperm this will add extra costs to your treatment. Donor sperm is significantly cheaper than donor eggs, since the process of retrieval is so much simpler and does not require fertility drugs or complex harvesting techniques. Donor sperm can cost as little as $300 whereas donor eggs, including medication and treatment, can add upwards of $2,000 to your bill.

Why is North Cyprus a top destination for PGD/PGS treatments

Since PGD/PGS treatments are not available in many other countries, going to North Cyprus to get this method of having babies is a wise choice. The long experiences of treating patients coming from many countries have made the clinics in North Cyprus the renowned clinics with good reputation. North Cyprus also boasts a lot of magnificent tourism destinations. Couples will also have the chance to enjoy good time to help improve their emotional conditions as this will certainly affect the results of the treatments.

Founded in 1998, North Cyprus IVF Center in Nicosia quickly became one of the leading fertility clinics in Cyprus. North Cyprus IVF is the first clinic to introduce sperm and egg donation programs, and also the gender selection option for family balancing.

„We are proud to say that we are the first IVF Clinic to be opened in North Cyprus and a pioneer in fertility treatments and procedures on the island. We are the only fertility clinic in North Cyprus with its own genetics laboratory for genetic testing and screening”, said Dr. Savas Ozyigit, Director - IVF Specialist.

„We have brought the cutting edge MicroSort technology in Cyprus in 2011, allowing our medical team to perform the highest precision sperm sorting for gender selection treatments. It is worth mentioning that this treatment is only available in one other country: Mexico”, said Ahmet Ozyigit, Deputy Director - IVF Coordinator.

Among the treatments offered at North Cyprus IVF are: IUI, IVF + ICSI, cytoplasmic transfer, egg/sperm donor IVF treatment, gender selection treatment, pre-implantation genetic screening (PGS/PGD).

In order to choose the best gender selection method several factors will be taken into consideration: age of the woman, semen analysis and hormone levels for the woman.

Alternative methods for gender selection:

• MicroSort IUI for Gender Selection - for couples in their 20s
• MicroSort IVF for Gender Selection - similar to the regular IVF-ICSI treatment
• IVF with PGD for Gender Selection - PGD stands for Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis used to screen for genetic disorders
• MicroSort IVF with PGD for Gender Selection - for patients older than 35, with limited ovarian reserves

When looking for the best destination for a PGD procedure abroad, make sure that the clinic has top qualifications and certifications, with highly trained medical staff and is using innovative technologies. Another aspect that cannot be ignored is the results. The higher the success rate, the easier is to make the decision.

About PlacidWay:

With growth in medical travel, there are many options at affordable prices and possibility to fulfil parenting dreams. PlacidWay, a leader in the medical tourism industry, offers extensive information related to medical travel, international medical providers, foreign treatment packages, as well as global destinations for health travelers. PlacidWay's network has over 300 renowned medical centers from 35 countries, and is able to help customers from all over the world get access to personalized, safe, and affordable medical care meeting their budget requirements. 

If you want to learn more about PGD & PGS treatments, do not hesitate to contact us!