PGD - New Direction in The Genetic Diagnosis Field

Today, everything is possible and real - pregnancy of infertile women, genetically native child born by foreign woman, pregnancy and happy childbirth at the age of 50! Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) is the latest innovation in the field of reproductive medicine. It is a new reproductive technology used with an IVF cycle. Specialists conduct such procedure when embryo development reaches only a few days. PGD is used for diagnosis of a genetic disease in early embryos prior to implantation and pregnancy. In addition, this technology can be utilized in the field of assisted reproduction for aneuploidy screening and diagnosis of unbalanced inheritance of chromosome abnormalities, such as translocations or inversions. Using preimplantation genetic diagnosis it is possible to prevent the transfer of genetically defective embryos, identifying impaired chromosome set. Deviations from the normal number of chromosomes can lead to serious diseases, such as Down, Patau, Edwards syndromes and many others. Moreover, performing PGD, doctors have an opportunity to choose future child’s sex.

Prevention of complex, incurable diseases, sex selection – all these is great, and no doubt, parents who have faced with infertility and plan IVF will like it. However, PGD doesn’t always end 100% successfully. Embryologists note that with PGD, there is possibility that some embryos may be damaged by the process of cell removal and testing may not be 100% reliable or conclusive. That is, doctor can select the healthiest and best embryos, without any genetic abnormalities, but they will not cause pregnancy because of the fact that they were disturbed.

Often, PGD procedure is recommended when:

·         you have had a number of abortions because your baby had a genetic condition;

·         you already have a child with a serious genetic condition;

·         you have a family history of a serious genetic condition.

As of the sex selection, some genetic diseases affect only one sex. For example Duchenne muscular dystrophy affects only boys. Girls may ‘carry’ the gene for the disease but they will not suffer from it. In such cases, embryo is tested to find out needed sex and only embryos of the non-affected sex are transferred to the womb.

Conducting sex selection, there is also possibility that some embryos will be damaged by the process of testing, it will be no embryos suitable for transfer to the womb after sex selection (i.e. all embryos can be of the sex being selected against) and in addition test is not 100% reliable.

Even planning delivery of a child in a natural way, without ART use, no one knows what health conditions child will have. Therefore, maybe let’s not try to tumble over ourselves in order to divine what the future will have a child and plan everything in details. Of course, such cases can be when there is a direct and inevitable need to conduct PGD. But if there is no serious reason to disturb embryo it will be better not to monkey with a buzz-saw. In any case, you get to choose.

 ((Happy Family))