IVF success using three in one test
A 3-in-1 test is said to almost guarantee the chance of having a baby.By allowing only the best eggs or embryos to be selected for IVF, the Oxford University test is expected to reduce the chances of miscarriage and greatly boost the chances of a woman having a healthy baby.
Just one in four of the 40,000 women who have IVF each year have a baby.
IVF test inventor
The test's inventor, Dagan Wells, said: 'It offers the possibility of enhancing success rates of IVF, allowing couples to more rapidly get to the point of having a child and avoids the heartbreak of miscarriage and termination of pregnancies affected by serious disorders.'
CGH test
The new technique is based upon an existing test called array comparative genomic hybridisation (CGH) which counts the number of chromosomes in an egg or embryo. Healthy eggs should have 23 chromosomes and embryos 46, but many have more or less than this, greatly increasing the risk of miscarriage and of having a child with a condition such as Down's syndrome.
Mitochondria and telomeres
Now, the technique’s pioneer Dr Wells is trying to make it even better by bolting on two other checks. One involves counting the number of mitochondria – the tiny ‘batteries’ inside cells that turn the food we eat into energy. The other test involves checking structures called telomeres. These are tiny biological clocks that cap the ends of chromosomes, protecting them from damage, much like the caps on the ends of shoelaces prevent fraying. Studies suggest that short or fraying telomeres can make the difference between ‘life or death’ for an embryo.
100 per cent IVF success
Dr Wells said testing for three defects rather than one could take the IVF success rate from the 80 per cent or so of array CGH to approaching 100 per cent. ‘We hope to fill in that gap and get closer to getting a successful pregnancy from every IVF cycle.’
Only assists some women
The test won’t help women whose pregnancies fail because of problems with the womb. But this is not a major cause of IVF failure and other researchers are working on ways of getting round it.
New test available in weeks
Dr Wells plans to make it available to around 15 British IVF clinics within weeks. However, initially, only the chromosome data will be used when deciding which embryos to use in IVF. After around six months, he will look at the telomere and mitochondria data taken from the embryos at the time and see whether it also helped predict the women’s odds of becoming pregnant. If so, he plans to make the full three-in-one test available to British clinics. It will only be available privately initially and is expected to add around £2,000 to the cost of IVF, the same as array CGH.
British Fertility Society
The British Fertility Society has previously cautioned against the use of array CGH until there is large-scale data on how well it works.
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