European Union expansion could lead to fertility tourism, with couples travelling to the block’s eastern countries where treatment is just as effective but much cheaper, experts said on Wednesday.
In Slovenia and Hungary, among the 10 countries that joined the EU last month, pregnancy rates following in-vitro fertilization are higher than in Germany and Britain and treatment is a fraction of the cost.
“Discrepancies in prices between countries, particularly between east and west, means that it is vital that potential patients can compare not only prices, but the quality and efficacy of the treatments on offer,” Professor Karl Nygren, of the Sofiahemmet Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden, told a fertility conference.
Preliminary data from a report on assisted reproduction technology in Europe by Nygren and Dr. Anders Nyboe Andersen, of the Copenhagen University in Denmark, show doctors in some eastern European countries are performing more fertility treatments than in western nations.
Denmark has the highest availability of fertility treatments in Europe, with 1,923 cycles per million of the population in 2001. By comparison Slovenia, which ranked fifth, had 1,222 treatment cycles while the Netherlands had 963 and Britain 593 cycles per million.
Decline in multiple births
In Britain, the cost of one cycle of IVF ranges from $3,630 to $7,260 but in Hungary and Slovenia it could be half the price.
Both countries have good systems of collecting data and the pregnancy rate for IVF per embryo transfer in Slovenia is 36.2 percent and 31.9 percent in Hungary, which surpasses Germany with 28.6 percent and Britain with 28.4 percent.
“With EU enlargement and the increasing freedom of movement that this brings, it has become even more important that countries collect accurate and complete data on the assisted reproduction technology carried out in their clinics,” Nygren told the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology meeting.
The report also showed a decline in multiple births, which can be dangerous for both the mother and children, after fertility treatments.