RESUMO
Assisted reproduction technology (ART) has made considerable progress in recent years; in particular with regard to cryopreservation, long-term storage, successful thawing, and embryo transfer of cryopreserved embryos. Regarding gestational surrogacy, progress has been made in the areas of awareness, social acceptance, regulation, legislation, availability, streamlining, and optimization of cross-border care. The above is being highlighted in the current presentation of a particularly challenging and novel case. A 43-year-old woman visited our clinic in Greece, seeking international gestational surrogacy due to recurrent breast cancer which rendered her medically unfit for pregnancy. Ten years before her initial visit to our clinic the patient had undergone fertility preservation due to breast cancer, her oocytes had been fertilized with her husband's sperm, and the embryos were cryopreserved and stored in a fertility clinic based in the United Kingdom. The stored embryos were transported to Greece, thawed, and successfully implanted to the selected gestational surrogate. Following an uneventful pregnancy, the surrogate delivered a healthy girl. This successful outcome exemplified innovation, motivation, and hope and may represent a paradigm of team scientific excellence associated with positive patient outcomes. Furthermore, this case constitutes the successful culmination of major advances made in various different sectors of cross-border reproductive care; laboratory, clinical, legal, ethical, and logistical.
