Egg donation is an in vitro fertilisation treatment used when it is no longer possible to use one’s own eggs. Donation is an anonymous and altruistic act and the donor is carefully selected on the basis of a number of specific parameters.
Once the donor has been identified, egg donation can be carried out in two ways:
Fresh insemination of donated oocytes
The day of the donor egg retrieval is synchronised with the day of insemination with the recipient partner’s semen. This approach allows fresh insemination of donated oocytes.
Insemination of vitrified donor oocytes
The alternative approach is to vitrify the donor oocytes and store them in liquid nitrogen banks until the day of “matching” between the donor and the recipient patient, which is when the vitrified donated oocytes are assigned for egg donation treatment.
The difference with fresh insemination is that the oocytes are thawed at the time as insemination with the semen of the recipient partner. Oocyte vitrification has reached a very high level of efficiency and has allowed the development and spread of vitrified oocyte banks. The results of this technique are satisfactory and the oocyte thawing survival rate is approximately 90%.
