Under Greek legislation covering egg donation procedures, all egg donors must be under 35 years of age, but usually active egg donors are no older than 32. Under Greek law they are screened for the following list of tests.
Blood group & Rhesus |
Haemoglobin Hb electrophoresis |
AMH (Anti-Mullerian Hormone) |
HIV, HbsAg, Anti-HCV, VDRL, |
NAT (HIV – HbsAg – Anti-HCV) |
Cytomegalovirus (CMV) IgG & IgM |
Cystic Fibrosis CFTR 98% |
Karyotype |
Fragile X |
The IVF facilities I am working with, for egg donation cycles, have ensured that they do further testing on egg donors, even more extensive than what is required by Greek law, as you may find in the table below.
General Blood Test, Glucose, Urea, Creatinine, Cholesterol, HDL, LDL, Triglycerides, SGOT, SGPT |
Urinalysis, Urine culture |
Pap Smear |
Iron & Ferritin levels |
G6PD enzyme deficiency |
Metachromatic leukodystrophy |
Wilson Disease |
Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome |
Duchenne muscular dystrophy |
HADHA gene |
ACADM gene |
Congenital disorder of glycosylation |
This screening includes their biochemical profile, which is indicative of the general health of the individual, and an extensive gene screening for some diseases relatively common in the Mediterranean population, in order to avoid genetic material that may be a carrier of a serious disease. In this way, we can safely proceed to the selection of the egg donor based on the matching phenotypic profile of each woman and also be fairly confident that we are obtaining the best possible quality in terms of health and genetics.