In Vitro Fertilisation with Gryshchenko Clinic-IVF

In this article you will find the answer for:

Why Ukraine for IVF
Ukrainian IVF legislation
What is IVF
How IVF is done
IVF prices
IVF success rate
IVF for women after 40
IVF after 40 with own eggs
Disadvantages of IVF
Who can not have the IVF treatment
IVF Guarantee program.

Many women who struggle with fertility choose to conceive with the help of the advanced medical procedure - IVF. In vitro fertilization is a popular treatment for medical tourism which rises a lot of questions due to its complexity. Therefore, to give you more in-depth information about what is IVF, we talked with Olga Polotska, head of the Overseas Clients Department from Gryshchenko Clinic-IVF in Ukraine.

My name is Olga Polotska. I am in charge of any assistance overseas patients at Gryshchenko Clinic-IVF (GC-IVF) might ask for. The Clinic provides a full range of services in diagnostics and treatment for female and male infertility factors. We are the oldest IVF clinic in Ukraine working in reproductive medicine for over 30 years.

Why Choose Ukraine for IVF?

Ukraine offers most types of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) due to the loyal legislation in this sphere. This fact can be extremely attractive for patients who for some reason cannot enter egg and sperm donation programs, or surrogacy programs in their countries. In Ukraine, these programs are provided absolutely legally.
The quality of services is traditionally on a high level in various medical fields including ART. Most of the Ukrainian fertility clinics are up-to-date and well-equipped. Ukrainian doctors are trained to high international standards. In most cases, the clinic’s staff speaks foreign languages fluently.
Ukrainian fertility clinics yield impressive success rates for IVF. The success rates are high, stable, and comparable to those of the best American and European clinics.
One more reason for choosing Ukraine is the cost of treatment which is considerably lower than in European countries, the UK, and the USA.

For a better understanding of the foundations of in vitro fertilisation, it's recommended to read about the Reproductive System and the overall process of Fertility Treatment.

Quote:
Gryshchenko Clinic-IVF is located in Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine. In 1990 in Kharkiv, the first successful IVF cycle in Ukraine was completed under the supervision of Valentin Gryshchenko (the founder of Gryshchenko Clinic-IVF), on March 19, 1991, resulted in the birth of the first Ukrainian test-tube baby – a girl named Katya. Since that time reproductive medicine in Ukraine has been developing progressively. Ukraine constantly implements advanced innovations in the field of assisted reproductive technologies.

What Is IVF and How it is Done?

In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) — is the artificial fertilization of the oocyte outside the woman’s body, in vitro. If fertilization does not occur naturally in the body of a woman, it can be conducted outside the body. This is the basic idea of the method of in vitro fertilization. The IVF procedure consists of several stages each of which is important, and the success of treatment depends on all of them.

Treatment usually starts with the first consultation. It is necessary to determine the existing problems of patients and the methods of their treatment. As a result of the consultation and after the fertility specialist analyzes all the available medical documentation about your health condition (hospital discharges after treatment, recommendations of gynecologists and related experts, test results, tubal patency test results, or any other documentation) you will be offered a treatment plan and an optimal set of measures for achieving a pregnancy.

The first stage of IVF is controlled ovarian stimulation. A fertility specialist prescribes medications for encouraging the follicles to produce more oocytes.

After this goes the stage of oocyte retrieval. This procedure is performed in hospital conditions and under short-term anesthesia. The duration of the procedure is 15-20 minutes and the patient does not feel any discomfort in the process of it.

The next stage is sperm obtaining and preparation. The sample of sperm is then cleaned and spermatozoids of the best quality are selected.

The following step is fertilization. Currently, the procedure of Intra Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI), as well as IMSI (Intracytoplasmic Morphologically selected Sperm Injection) and PICSI (Physiologic IntraCytoplasmic Sperm Injection), is used as a method of fertilization. The best-selected sperm cell is injected inside the oocyte with the help of a microneedle. Then goes the process of embryo cultivation. Embryos develop in incubators under strict temperature and humidity control.

The final stage is the embryo transfer (ET). On the 2nd-5th day of cultivation, an embryo is transferred inside the patient’s uterus. On days 12-14 after the ET hGc test is taken for pregnancy confirmation.

In order to increase the chances for IVF success, Preimplantation Genetic Testing (PGT-A) is used at Gryshchenko Clinic-IVF. This testing is performed on the embryo before it is transferred.

PGT-A helps to:

Increases implantation rates
Reduces miscarriage rates
Increases ongoing pregnancy rates
Increases in live birth rates
Reduces the time to pregnancy
Enables confident single embryo transfer.

Moreover, PGT-A can be used for the purpose of family balancing. It is the most accurate method for the successful determination of the embryo’s sex before ET.

Considering different fertility treatments abroad? Check out our article on IVF Price Comparison In Different Countries for some valuable insights.

What Is Your IVF Treatment Success Rate?

The main criterion of the clinic’s choice is definitely the effectiveness of in vitro fertilization success rate. We suggest that you estimate some of the most important effectiveness markers of our work.

Frequency of clinical pregnancy after the first IVF cycle - 51.1%
Frequency of clinical pregnancy after two sequential IVF cycles - 67.3%
Frequency of clinical pregnancy after three sequential IVF cycles - 70.6%
1,899 children were born in 2015-2017.

Accuracy of the statistics is provided by the computer system MedITEX IVF which has been successfully used in our clinic since 2012.

What is IVF Success Rate by Age?

IVF treatment success rates decrease significantly with the increase in age. Thus, IVF success rates by age are also an important index of an IVF clinic functioning. The main reason for the results decline is the increase in the quantity of embryo chromosomal abnormality that leads to the reduction of the implantation frequency due to the embryo factor. In order to expel its influence, we estimated the marker of implantations frequency in young patients (younger than 35 y. o. at the moment of embryo transfer), which in fact is a selective marker subgroup that is used in the estimation of effectiveness of the IVF clinic work. In this group of «perspective» patients, implantation frequency equaled 37.9%. This marker can be compared with average markers of USA clinics (according to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART, USA).

Gryshchenko Clinic-IVF - 37.9%
USA clinics (according to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, USA) - 36.9%
Europe clinics (according to the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology) - 37.5%

Can You Get IVF After The Age of 40 and With Own Eggs Too?

Yes, it is possible we traditionally have many patients over 40. In recent years, it has become a trend for women to build their careers first and plan a pregnancy after 35-38 only. On the other hand, the ovarian reserve grows poorer and poorer with each year in patients over 35.
Does this mean that for patients over 40, the only way to achieve a pregnancy is by entering IVF programs with the donor’s oocytes? Not necessarily. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PDG), for example, increases success rates several times.
However, there is no denying the fact that programs with donor’s oocytes are far more resultative for most patients of this age group. There might be exceptions, and patients over 40 can successfully get IVF with their own eggs, too. So the final decision is always made by the fertility specialist and the patient.

How Much IVF Does Cost?

Gryshchenko Clinic-IVF offers its patients several IVF packages. They differ in the medical and hospitality services included.

Quote:
The price for the Basic Package starts at 3,400 EUR.

The average price for consulting services is 50 EUR. However, we offer our overseas patients to have a primary Skype consultation with the respective specialist. The consultation is free. We believe that such consultations can help a patient who is considering clinics for treatment to contact our specialists and get an idea of the standards of the Clinic’s functioning.

Explore Fertility Treatment Packages offered by various clinics around the globe on our platform.

Who Cannot Have an IVF Procedure?

According to the recommendations of the Ministry of Healthcare of Ukraine, embryos can be transferred into the uteruses of women ≤ 49. Thus, we cannot let a woman who is 50 or over enter a program of ART.
Another category of patients we refuse our help is HIV-positive people. However, we accept patients diagnosed with Hepatitis B/C.
Besides, there are strict limitations for surrogacy programs. They are mainly of social character. Only officially married heterosexual couples can enter surrogacy programs. However, single women can enter other ART programs (IVF, IVF with sperm donation, embryo donation, IVF with oocyte donation, artificial insemination with donor’s sperm).

What Are the Main Disadvantages of IVF?

In controlled ovarian stimulation, there is always a risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS). In order to avoid this complication, effective methods of prevention are widely used at Gryshchenko Clinic-IVF. The appliance of such preventions allowed for reducing the frequency of occurrence of OHSS to the minimum. We are an OHSS-free clinic at the moment!
Another important disadvantage of IVF technology used to be multiple fetus pregnancies. To secure pregnancy occurrence, fertility specialists transferred more than one embryo into the patient’s uterus. Sometimes only one embryo was implanted, but in other cases, several of them continued developing. As a result, a multiple fetus pregnancy occurred, which might result in severe complications both for the mother and the fetus. To avoid this, GC-IVF is implementing Elective Single Embryo Transfer (eSET) technique. In combination with PGD, this method increases the rates of implantation and development of a healthy fetus, and later birth of one healthy baby significantly.

Does the Clinic Provide Guarantee Programs?

One of the questions I get from our patients is about guaranteed programs. GC-IVF does not offer them for multiple reasons:

According to Ukrainian laws, guaranteeing any treatment is illegal;
No one can guarantee a 100% result in the medical sphere because natural processes can be controlled only partially;
Various age groups of patients have different treatment perspectives, thus for a younger patient, success rates are going to be higher. That is why older patients are automatically excluded from such programs;
Guaranteed programs often include an ‘unlimited’ number of transfers. It can hardly be done without any harm to the recipient and within some reasonable time limit. So, it is a myth, not a successful treatment.

However, GC-IVF CAN guarantee our patients: