Medical team is involved in choosing a good donor. From the medical point of view, donor should be healthy, donor should not have some infections, bad habits, have good ovarian reserve, have normal response to stimulation – so all these things but from phenotype point of view, of course, it depends on legislation of country. In some countries, it is permitted to see donor, even to meet donor, in others it is prohibited so, for example, in Ukraine it is prohibited but patient may provide photo, we have photos of donors and we can do matching. We can choose the best from physical point of view. Also there are some programs named phenomena which can be helpful -it is like artificial intelligence which compares some points of physical appearance and then, choose the best donor, one who will be closest match to this patient from physical point of view.
Depending in which country are you living, some countries allow the patient or the intended parents to choose the donor (egg or sperm donor) and in other countries it is not allowed and therefore the doctor or the donor coordinators together with the doctors select the donor that is the best phenotypically matched with the intended parents. In the majority of countries it is allowed for the patients to make the choice for themselves, informing the bank that they want the donor from. For example, in Cryos we have patients directly contacting us, making a selection on the website and then choosing the clinic that they want to have treatment with.
You might have seen on TV a lot of programs where the clinic has photo catalogues of donors but it is not quite the reality. In some countries donors are anonymous and in some others, they are not. Also, the decision of choosing a donor varies per country. In some countries, you are responsible for choosing a donor, and in others, it is the medical team that is the one responsible.
In Spain, by law, donors are anonymous and the medical team chooses your donor basing their decision on phenotypic issues. They should choose a donor that looks the most similar to the patient. For that matter, clinics can also do an improved selection – one could be based on genetic compatibility (karyotype test) and the other could be facial resemblance that can be measured by using Fenomatch tool. This tool measures a dozen thousand biometrics points on the patient and donor’s face and provides a score of similarity based on the resemblance.
