PGT-A Testing | Embryo Genetic Testing

[tara17x]

Hello, looking for some advice as currently very confused.
My partner and I have just started our first IVF cycle after 4 failed IUIs. I am 30 and have never fallen pregnant before, I'm healthy and using donor sperm due to my male partners infertility.
Our clinic is asking whether we want to consider Embryo genetic testing and we can't decide.
Does anyone have experience of using this? Do you think it would be worth it?

Thank you.

Hi there, there's been a lot of discussions on this topic on this forum. You can have a search of them. The fact that HFEA has it on red light (www.hfea.gov.uk/treatments/treatment-add-ons/pre-implantation-genetic-testing-for-aneuploidy-pgt-a/) means that science evidence shows limited benefit, esp for women under 38 years old (when embryo abnormality is lower to start with). Plus the fact that you don't have recurrent miscarriage history.

My own example is that I'm 38, but before my first round of ivf I wasn't sure how many good quality eggs and embryos I can produce, so there's no point doing PGT-A testing if there is only one or two embryos anyway, as you risk them being all abnormal and in the UK clinics are legally forbidden to transfer abnormal embryos so you lose your round. I ended up with only 1 good quality blast (5AA) and 2 poor quality ones (3CC), so we transferred the 5AA one without testing. I'm now 12 weeks pregnant. Haven't had my NT scan yet so fingers crossed.

But if you want to do multi-cycle embryo banking, and if you are very averse to miscarriage risk, and if you can afford the PGT-A costs, then you can go for it to improve your success rate per transfer.

Good luck to you either way!

Thank you Katerose, really appreciate you sharing your experience. We are getting conflicting advice from the clinic so struggling to make a decision.