PGTA test experiences anyone?

[Kittybijoux]

After failed rounds we are going to do embryo banking and PGTA testing, who has done this and what was your experience?

Also what clinic did you go to?

Thanks in advance!

Not done embryo/egg banking, but so far PGT-A has been positive for us. We had 3 egg collection cycles, and have transferred 6 untested embryos vs 1 tested, and the tested one is currently working. Have adjusted other things too, but it could be we were putting back abnormal embryos because I was 38 when we started (now 40). We're with Lister in London.

@thislittlebird thank you so much for your reply. I'm 38 now, had one failed cycle 2 weeks ago and a failed cycle 6 years ago. I'm worried as we only produced one day 5 blastocyst on this recent cycle after 10 eggs were collected and 7 were mature eggs. I'm not sure why we only got one embryo, the clinic didn't really have an explanation for that in the follow up consultation. Can I ask what clinic you went with and if you were on mild stimming or high dosages? I think we will be doing the same protocol as you - 3 egg collections in a row, make embryos on each one (hopefully) PGTA test them and only freeze the good ones then hopefully transfer a good one at the end.

@Kittybijoux I think that sounds like a good plan. We did it the slow/cheaper way, we had 1 NHS cycle, 2 private cycles with an Access package through Lister (link below) and in hindsight, I wish I had gone the egg banking and testing route for speed.

This is our clinic: https://www.hcahealthcare.co.uk/facilities/the-lister-hospital/units-and-teams/lister-fertility-clinic

I was on short protocol/low-ish doses on my first NHS cycle (150 Gonal F) in February 2022, and then they increased it at the private clinic to higher doses (300 Gonal F, I think), my AMH was fairly high for my age at 36 when we started but probably lower now. We got 10-15 eggs each time, and decent fertilisation and blast rates, except for our second cycle where my husband had had a fever recently and all the sperm were dead. Did you have a good fertilisation rate? If you didn't then I would probably look at male tests, if you haven't done them. We thought we had an egg meets sperm problem, but maybe we had age problems, progesterone problems and so on because it took 7 tries to get this far and it's still very early days. The clinic were quite good at covering all bases and for this current transfer I'm on blood thinners, low dose prednisolone, extra progesterone.

I also did three rounds of embryo banking with PGTA while I was 38 last/ this year. I have PCOS so had hoped I might not need the full three cycles, but I did. In my case it was very, very expensive (partly because I used a clinic in London but live hundreds of miles away) but it worked out well and I’m now pregnant. I’d say my medication doses were relatively but not excessively high (at least for someone with PCOS). The clinics we considered were; CRGH, ARGC, The Lister and The Evewell in London and ARK in Greece.

We have done embryo banking with PGTA testing this year we did 2 rounds and we had 6 genetically normal embryos our consultant said she felt 6 was enough to have to try and have a FET. The PGTA is not cheap (£500 per embryo at our clinic) but I’ve got low ovarian reserve and we were advised to to do PGTA and we’ve now been told we have a 70% chance of successful implantation compared to 25% before PGTA so for me the cost was worth the chance

I did it at Lister and am glad that we did. I would recommend looking closely at pricing as the different clinics price differently (eg when I did it two years ago lister charged per embryo and CRGH charged per round, so if you weren’t likely to get a lot of blastocysts per round it made CRGH very very expensive).

Also look at how the clinics test - some do all of the rounds of embryo collecting and freezing, then defrost when all collected, test and freeze again. I didn’t want to do that as I didn’t want to defrost and refreeze. I guess what I mean is that there is a lot of variation in approach and cost and so do look into it in detail before deciding who to go with.

Happy to answer any questions you may have. Wishing you all the best.

We are looking at doing this too after 3 rounds of IVF and two miscarriages. It looks like Create do a 3-cycle package which includes PGT-A (looking at their price list). That’s mild IVF though, not full. Good luck!

@thislittlebird my friend also went to Lister a few years ago after 3 failed cycles on the nhs and she got pregnant after the first attempt at Lister. We live in Leeds so it's a long way to go but it would help if we went there for the egg collections, tests and transfer, and went to a clinic closer to home for the in treatment scans. Otherwise it's a long way to travel a few times a week!

Care do a 3 cycle package for £18,900 including ERA and PGTA (took me a week of speaking to multiple people to finally find out the price over the phone as it's not on the website). Create do a package that is much less but when you add on the ERA, PGTA and general tests it comes out at around £14,500 so is still cheaper.

I don't know how I feel about Create and the mild / modified natural IVF, I can't wrap my head around how we would get results that are just as good?

I'm going to call Lister today to find out some more info, thank you for all your advice!

@Chickencrazy3356 I feel the same about PGTA, I've heard it can improve chances to 70% (our chances are currently around 20%). Definitely worth it.

@thislittlebird we had 10 eggs taken, 7 were mature, 4 fertilised on day 1 but only 1 made it to day 5, the others stopped growing. The consultant didn't mention male testing during our follow up, it's probably worth looking in to isn't it.

@CuriousGeorge80 thank you for that info! If you don't mind me asking, does Lister have a package for everything or do you just have to add all the bits together that you want? I've had a look at their website and can see individual prices but not a 2-3 cycle package with tests etc.

@Kittybijoux I don’t know if they have packages but I definitely didn’t use one, so can’t really help there sorry.

@Kittybijoux they have packages through Access, but I don’t think it includes PGT-A. I had a two cycle package with them. A package that includes PGT-A sounds very good, we had to pay £500 per embryo at Lister, but we only tested 3.

It is a long way to go so definitely look more local, or see if you can find a compromise between the two areas like you said.

See if you can find out when the embryos deteriorated from your embryologist. If it’s between days 2/3 and day 5 it can indicate a sperm issue.

@thislittlebird thanks for your message. I talked to Lister and all appointments would have to be in their hospitals in London, they don't use any satellite clinics in the north. On this I decided it's too much of a stretch to be travelling back and forth so much. We have booked a consultation with Care as still feel like we have a lot of questions we need answered before we press the go button. I think it's looking like we will have 3 egg collections, the ERA, EMMA and Alice tests and PGTA before a transfer. My main concern is not getting enough embryos to find more that 1 or 2 viable ones, or even finding 1 viable one. Knowing we only got one embryo that wasn't great quality in our last round doesn't bode well for me. I had 2 decent quality embryos in a cycle 7 years ago but I am 38 now so it seems my egg quality isn't what is used to be. I'm hoping by changing the dosages we can create more embryos, but I know this isn't something that's guaranteed.

@Kittybijoux

Hi there,

Just found this old thread. I hope you don’t mind me messaging. Just wanted to ask how you’re getting on. We’ve currently reached the end of embryo banking with PGTA. We’ll be doing our first PGTA transfer next month and I’m starting to panic!

I hope it’s all going well for you 😊

I did duo stim with pgta last year. Got three euploids. Currently 37 weeks pregnant. Care in Manchester

We went to Lister and I didn’t do embryo banking but I had one cycle with one 5 day embryo which we tested and it was normal 🙏 I felt confident in their knowledge of PGTA and their biopsy procedure. It gave us great peace of mind after a previous miscarriage to know the embryo was normal and I now have a beautiful 5 month old 🙏

@CR7 That’s amazing news! Massive congratulations. Duo stim was suggested to us at one point but then we were told we weren’t candidates!?! We did two failed cycles of IVF and then four pgta cycles which resulted in 5 euploids. We’re at Care Leeds.

Good luck with the rest of your pregnancy x

@roundthetwist1990

That’s amazing news! Huge congratulations x

Thank you xx For me they said it was a good option as I was 42 and my amh was low. I think every clinic has different criteria