New test ‘to triple’ chances of IVF success

LONDON - A new screening technique developed by UK-based researchers could double or triple current IVF success rates.

The test allows for any chromosomal abnormalities, the biggest cause of early pregnancy loss, to be picked up in embryos before they are re-implanted.

The test allows the viability of embroys to be tested without damaging them.

“Before we would look down a microscope and see five, six, maybe 10 embryos knowing that half are chromosomally abnormal but there’s no way of testing it,” the BBC quoted CARE director Simon Fishel as saying.

“We now we have an objective test that is related to the health of the pregnancy,” he added.

In IVF the embryo reaches a stage called the blastocyst at day five. This is a day or so before it would normally implant in the womb and when it is reimplanted in IVF.

“At this stage we can do a tiny biopsy of those placental cells. So we don’t even touch the cells that are going to become the baby itself,” Fishel said.

“We can then can analyse all the chromosomes that would tell us about the cells that make the baby at the latest time before it goes back into the womb,” he explained.

“This information seems to make a massive difference up to a doubling or tripling of pregnancy rates. In other words, each embryo is much more efficient at implanting and maintaining that pregnancy,” Fishel added.

“We will see a paradigm shift in what we’re doing in IVF I believe in the coming years, due to work that’s now maturing in the next 6 to 12 months.” (ANI)