Healthy pregnancies become much more likely when the early embryo can be genetically screened for abnormalities. In vitro fertilization procedures offer an ideal opportunity to conduct such embryo screening before transfer.

What Is PGD?

Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis is a method of identifying chromosomal abnormalities before implantation of the embryo.

The procedure is conducted after the egg has been fertilized in vitro, and before the developing embryo is re-implanted into the womb.

After fertilization, the embryo naturally cleaves into individual cells, or "blastomeres". These cells are virtually identical to each other. Genetically testing one such blastomere can therefore usually reflect the genetic integrity of the embryo overall.

PGD involves physically removing 1 or 2 such cells from the embryo with the help of various micro-manipulation techniques. Even though cells are removed, the embryo itself is left undamaged.

These removed cells are then tested for chromosomal abnormalities. The option to gender screen embryos is therefore also available.

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