Repeated embryo transfers without due examinations does not make sense. PGT-A is the solution.
If you ever went through a miscarriage you wish only one thing: that it never repeats again. Repeated miscarriages are not alright and is always important to seek its cause. Thanks to the preimplantation genetic testing of aneuploidies, it is possible to decrease the risk of miscarriages, also the risk of complications during pregnancy or birth of handicapped baby and, on the contrary, increase the success rate of artificial fertilization.
What are aneuploidies? Can they impede the right implantation of the embryo?
The state when the embryo has an extra chromosome or, on the contrary, a chromosome is missing, is called an aneuploidy. These chromosome defects arise completely randomly during the maturation of eggs, sperm cells or during the embryo development; it can arise also when the couple does not have any previous genetic complications. Thus, in comparison to preimplantation genetic testing of monogenic diseases (PGT-M) that searches for particular congenital defects, PGT-A reveals the new ones. Both these methods can significantly decrease the risk of congenital developmental defects.
An aneuploid embryo can implant itself in the body of a woman, but these kinds of pregnancies often end with miscarriage or birth of a baby affected by, for example, Down syndrome (extra chromosome 21), Edwards syndrome (extra chromosome 18) and Patau syndrome (extra chromosome 13).
In what cases should we let the embryos to be tested?
Except repeated miscarriages, there are other objective reasons that increase the necessity of deciding for the PGT-A, for example repeated unsuccessful embryo transfers in previous IVF cycles, birth of a baby with a developmental defect, poor parameters of partner’s sperm analysis, the state after a treatment of oncological disease using chemotherapy or radiation therapy and other.
If you are 35 or more, the examination of your embryos is very needed. According to the last researches, the main reason of a slump of fertility in women of higher age are chromosome disorders.
The new PANDA test (panel diagnostic analysis) can inform you whether there is any risk that could affect your conception or pregnancy development and whether you should let the embryos to be tested. This panel will tell you, besides other, if you are or are not genetically and reproductively compatible with your partner and whether you can give birth to a healthy baby.
How does PGT-A go and what does precede?
Embryologists fertilize the eggs by sperm cells and thus embryos are created. The embryologists care about these embryos in the following 5-6 days, evaluate their quality and right development. Once the embryos are in the right stage of development, which means in the stage of a blastocyst, a biopsy is performed (a retrieval of several cells). These cells are subsequently tested by means of MiSeq device that allows scanning of thousands of DNA parts and thus reveals genetic mutations. The most promising embryos with the normal number of chromosomes are frozen afterwards and in some of your next cycles one of them will be transferred to you.
