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Video: How Can PGS Help Prevent Recurrent Miscarriage?

By examining the chromosomes in an embyro using preimplantation genetic screening and only implanting healthy, normal embryos, doctors can reduce the miscarriage rate, explains Dr. Jamie Grifo, Program Director of the NYU Fertility Center and Director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology, NYU School of Medicine.

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0:00:00.000,0:00:05.000 (text on screen): Ask the Expert 0:00:05.000,0:00:07.000 Fertility Authority. Your Most Trusted Source 0:00:07.000,0:00:12.000 How can PGS help prevent recurrent miscarriage? 0:00:12.000,0:00:15.000 Jamie Grifo, M.D., NYU Fertility Center: Well, the technique of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, slash, screening 0:00:15.000,0:00:25.000 uses in vitro fertilization technology where we retrieve a good number of eggs, and then fertilize those, watch the embryos develop in the lab, 0:00:25.000,0:00:34.000 and then, using very sophisticated methods, after you take a cell out of a Day 3 embryo, or a group of cells out of a blastocyst, 0:00:34.000,0:00:41.000 you can do a genetic analysis of those cells, and thus have information about the embryo without harming the embryo. 0:00:41.000,0:00:52.000 And what we find is that a large percentage of good-looking, healthy, viable embryos are aneuploid: They have abnormal numbers of chromosomes. 0:00:52.000,0:00:58.000 And thus they either don't make pregnancies, or when they do make pregnancies, they're more likely to make miscarriages. 0:00:58.000,0:01:08.000 Patients who have recurrent miscarriage, especially patients who have recurrent miscarriage due to aneuploidies (chromosomal abnormalities), 0:01:08.000,0:01:15.000 when we apply this technique to them, and find embryos that are chromosomally normal, 0:01:15.000,0:01:22.000 and now we have the ability to check all 23 chromosomes, we find the miscarriage rate is dramatically reduced in that patient. 0:01:22.000,0:01:26.000 Typically, miscarriage rates in IVF are 20, 25 percent. 0:01:26.000,0:01:33.000 When you do PGS and put back euploid embryos, the miscarriage rates are less than 7 percent. 0:01:33.000,0:01:40.000 So, we can really help that group of patients not have to experience yet another devastating, bad outcome: miscarriage. 0:01:40.000,0:01:45.000 (text on screen): Ask the Expert 0:01:45.000,0:01:46.000 Fertility Authority. Your Most Trusted Source
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