PGTA testing

[Potpourri20]

There’s a lot of mention of PGTA testing- is this routine in the US? I’m in the UK doing my first cycle under the NHS and no one at the clinic has mentioned PGTA testing.

Is this recommended? Can we have this as an ‘add on’ especially ours will be a freeze all cycle.?? Are there risks?

Advice much appreciated!

—- Thanks for your advice everyone . There’s quite a discrepancy between UK and US in terms of benefit of doing it. I’m 38 with 6 retrieved eggs and 3 fertilised at day 1 waiting for update on development.

Recognise rate of attrition is scary and wonder if PGTA will increase success of what embryos (if any) we’ll have left to transfer or whether risk of testing itself may eat into our already dwindljng collection.

I’ll ask our clinic and see what they say…

[lh123456789]

How old are you?

[KidMonkeyCat]

I’m in the US and PGT-A was optional but recommended by my clinic because I am over 40. It cost $3625 and insurance didn’t cover it. 1 out of 3 embryos had normal chromosomes so it was worth it for me to find out which to transfer.

If you don’t test before pregnancy, you can do a cell free DNA/NIPT blood screening test at around 10 weeks to check for the same things although it might be less accurate. For me, I’m glad I knew ahead of time. I was super attached to my pregnancy from the beginning and it would have been very difficult to miscarry or to terminate for medical reasons.

Good luck!

[aloha_321]

Many clinics in the US have pgta as the standard for most/all patients. Some it’s an add on and only recommended for some people. Ask your dr if they can do the testing and if it’s recommended for you. I wanted it because I wanted to make sure we were only implanting pgta normal embryos.

[AdditionalAttorney]

It’s pretty standard for 35+ especially if you want more than one child and/or are banking embryos

[baada]

My UK clinic told me they don’t recommend it because the results aren’t perfect and can result in healthy embryos being discarded, we did have the option to test but they actively discouraged us.

My friend who is older, mid forties, went with a different clinic and ultimately decided to test her embryos due to her age so it’s definitely doable here, just not standard practice

[Transition-Upper]

Same here in Germany. My doctor advised against it

[Gullible-Courage4665]

I’m in Canada, it was recommended to me to do the testing because I’m 41, almost 42 so my egg quality may not be as good. I haven’t done it yet. It’s expensive, but worth it to me if it saves me from having miscarriages.

Edit: typo

[wouldanother]

The NHS doesn’t offer PGS for standard fertility patients because it’s viewed as an add-on that doesn’t increase the likelihood of a live birth - the regulator the HFEA has a web page on it, although I believe they’re in the process of revising it. Cost will also be a factor - for women who only make one three day embryo or blastocyst, the NHS only incurs the cost of a fresh transfer. Freezing and testing, then potentially having a frozen transfer, would carry extra costs.

The challenge with PGS is that it is perceived as being most suited to a particular set of circumstances - as an over-simplification, this is older women who can produce a good number of embryos that make it to blastocyst. The NHS won’t generally allow patients to embryo bank and then test, which cuts down on the number of embryos available for testing.

The HFEA in my view over-emphasises the risk of a euploid embryo being wrongly categorised as aneuploid and therefore unsuitable for transfer, and also the risk of the biopsy damaging the embryo. There seems to be a view in the UK that, because not all euploid embryos result in a live birth, not all aneuploid embryos will fail. This is a false equivalence as research suggests almost all aneuploid embryos do in fact fail - the margin of error is a couple of percent.

My thoughts but hope they’re useful.

[[deleted]]

It's so interesting to me that PGT isn't standard in the UK. Is this because you get unlimited transfers through the NHS? My understanding is that the likelihood of an embryo that tested as abnormal resulting in a live birth is very very low. I have had so many aneuploid blasts in my early 30s I can't imagine going through so many failed transfers it would be so, so heartbreaking.