Fertility News

Embryo Screening Can Reduce Fertility in Older Women - 07/17/2007

Pregnancy and birth rates have been found to be siginficantly lower among women over the age of 35 who have undergone embryo screening compared to those who have not undergone this type of fertility testing, according to a study presented recently at the Lyon meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.

Genetic screening involves the extraction of a single cell from a developing embryo in order to evaluate for the presence of chromosomal defects that can lead to such conditions as Down's syndrome. It was generally thought that genetic screening improves a woman's chances of getting pregnant after the age of 35.

The study involved 408 women, aged 35 to 41 who were undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF). Approximately half of the women underwent genetic screening; those who underwent screening had a lower pregnancy rate (25%) compared with those who did not (37%). In addition, over 60% of the embryos from the women who were screened were found to be abnormal.

Some experts are questioning the methodology used by the researchers, stating that the removal of a single cell from a four cell embryo to biopsy used to evuluate embryo development in the study was performed at an earlier date than usual.

However, other experts believe that the findings are accurate, stating that embryo screening can oftentimes fail to detect embryo abnormalities in addition to being harmful to a woman's fertility.

Source: The Canadian Press

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