Fertility preservation

⚕ Medically reviewed by Prof. Stratis Kolibianakis, MD, MSc, PhD · Thessaloniki Medical Chamber Reg. No. 16340 · Last reviewed 6 July 2026

We offer fertility preservation to women before oncological treatment (chemotherapy, radiotherapy) and to women who wish to defer motherhood for social reasons. The technique is vitrification of oocytes or embryos following ovarian stimulation. In selected cases (e.g. urgent oncological treatment) we also offer ovarian tissue cryopreservation. The ideal age is before 35 — from 38 onward, success rates decline significantly. See in our calculator how many eggs you may need, based on your age and desired family size.

Egg freezing for social reasons. If it is not yet the right time for motherhood, egg freezing “stops the biological clock” for the eggs you store: they keep the quality they had on the day of freezing. Because both the number and the quality of eggs fall with age, freezing before 35 gives a clearly better yield per cycle than later. The process is the same as the first stages of IVF: 8–12 days of stimulation and an egg retrieval.

Urgent preservation before cancer treatment. When chemotherapy or radiotherapy is about to begin, time is critical and we work closely with your oncologist. In most cases there is room for a rapid stimulation cycle that can start at any phase of the cycle (random start). When there is no time, or for a child/adolescent, ovarian tissue cryopreservation is an alternative. The aim is not to lose the chance of future parenthood without delaying treatment of the disease.

How many eggs are needed. Not every frozen egg becomes an embryo — some are lost at each stage (thawing, fertilisation, development). So the target number of eggs depends on your age at freezing and how many children you want in the future. Our calculator gives an individualised estimate based on published data, so you can decide whether you need one or more freezing cycles.

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