Dr. Zhang’s October Pick of the Month – Q&A
Hello everyone, I am writing at this time to further elaborate on some of the comments I received from my last post. Hope the adjacent text answers all your questions and takes our debate to new subjects. I truly love and appreciate all your feedback.
In recent news on the field of fertility, two hot new topics have been trending. These are aCGH (Array Comparative Genomic Hybridization) or NS Technique and the other is time-lapse monitoring via Embryoscope. Both procedures screen for the best embryo to improve IVF success by increasing pregnancy rates and reducing miscarriages. To better understand these procedures, I want to discuss the similarities and differences between both.
On one hand, Embryoscope takes time-lapse photos which can be set to a broad spectrum of periods and intervals, allowing us to get a more insightful and detailed look during the embryo development in the lab. The main benefit of this procedure is that we are able to detect any radical changes to determine the quality of the embryo before it is transferred into he womb.
On the other hand, we have aCGH – this technique analyzes chromosome cells in the embryo more invasively by testing DNA material from it. Theoretically, this procedure is more definite. However, both answer the question of the embryo’s quality.
Which one is best for you? I can conclude from the research made by our team here at NHFC and studies through other fertility clinics that Embryoscope is superior. I would personally recommend it for patients who produce a large quantity of embryos (5 – 15 embryos). So if there are any embryos that are not of good quality, there are a few others to select from for implantation. However this does not accurately detect genetic abnormalities, which is where aGCH is more useful than Embryoscope. For patients with a low quantity of embryos, our center heavily promotes frozen embryo transfers, which occur after genetic testing has been performed. Arguably, each center would have a different preference depending on patient population.
I hope this posting helped expand your understanding on the subject, and if more questions arose, please feel free to reach out. I would love to hear your feedback!
