What is PGD?

PGD (Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis) helps couples in BALANCING their family, it also reduces the risk of passing hereditary genetic disorders onto their children. Couples blessed with at least one child of a particular sex in the family are often interested in giving birth to another child of the opposite sex. Our state of the art, reproductive laboratory utilizes a combination of Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) technologies, allowing us the identification of pre-embryo(s) gender.

The combination of ICSI and PGD is the most precise approach of determining that an embryo is a boy or girl with nearly 99% percent accuracy.

How PGD Helps in Family Balancing?

FISH technology is well established and accredited practice in Fertility centers worldwide and enable scientist to determine the configuration of embryos based on x and y chromosome before implantation

The FISH (fluorescent in-situ hybridization) technology is used during PGD for determining the sex of an embryo(s). For gender selection, in the FISH technique two specific DNA “probes” are used. Each probe will identify both X & Y chromosomes. Molecules attached to the probes give out different colors of light, through which embryologists can determine the sex of that embryo.

How Accurate is PGD Testing?

Generally, the FISH procedure is 99% accurate for determining Gender at the embryonic level of day 3. However, there is a 1% chance of failure of gender selection. There can be a rare situation that all embryos may be found of the same gender.

However, in most of the single gene abnormalities, PGD testing is accurate approximately up to 98%.

Is PGD Helpful for Identification of any Genetic Condition?

Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is a technique used for the identification of genetic defects in the embryos produced through intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) / in-vitro fertilization (IVF) before conception. Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is helpful when one or both parents have some known genetic abnormality, in such cases biopsy is performed on the embryo to identify if it is carrying any genetic abnormality or not. In contrast to PGD, pre-implantation genetic screening (PGS) is a technique in which embryos screened for any possible aneuploidy.

Because only unaffected and chromosomally normal embryos are transferred into the uterus for implantation.

Is PGD Testing Always Successful?

In IVF clinics, after assessment by fertility specialists, every couple is counseled about success rates, and prospective parents should keep in mind that result of PGD / IVF is not successful all the time.

PGD is performed in conjunction with intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), so it is quite difficult to assess the result of PGD, success rates are dependent on many factors such as;

• Women age,
• Weight,
• Hormonal profile,
• Ovarian reserve,
• Quality of sperm,
• Poor development of embryos,
• Survival of embryos after biopsy,
• All embryos might genetically defect, and other hidden fertility issues.

Sometimes, the desired gender is not found resulting in NO Embryo Transfer.