By Sola Ogundipe

A NOVEL technique that improves and assesses the chromosomal makeup of embryos to improve Invitro Fertilization, IVF,  outcomes has been introduced in Nigeria.

Known as  Non-invasive Preimplantation Genetic Testing for Aneuploidy (NiPGT-A ),  the technique reduces potential risks associated with traditional biopsy procedures, making it much safer and more accurate.

Pioneer of the technique in Nigeria, Nordica Fertility Clinic, Lagos, said  NiPGT-A, can be successfully utilized to examine embryos without removing cells for biopsy, ultimately reducing the risk of implantation failure, and recurrent miscarriage, among others.

The Managing Director, of Nordica Fertility Centre, Lagos, Asaba, and Abuja, Dr Abayomi Ajayi, explained that by examining the culture medium surrounding the embryo, which contains shed fetal DNA, instead of taking cells directly from the embryo, it is possible to determine the embryo’s chromosomal health and identify any potential abnormalities.

Ajayi told Vanguard that NiPGT-A enhances outcomes for  IVF procedures and that individuals and couples in Lagos and environs facing infertility challenges can enjoy its benefits.

 “NiPGT-A analyzes the culture medium surrounding the embryo, which contains shed fetal DNA, instead of taking cells directly from the embryo. By examining this DNA, it is possible to assess the embryo’s chromosomal health and identify any potential abnormalities.”

According to him, Nordica Lagos Fertility Centre is offering NiPGT-A as part of its IVF procedures. He outlined the advantages offered by NiPGT-A over traditional preimplantation genetic testing (PGT-A) that involves embryo biopsy.

“The advantages are the same worldwide, but cost is one thing that is very important in this part of the world. So we believe that this is going to reduce costs. But why do people do IVF in the first place? It’s for them to get babies. So it’s also going to improve the success rate of IVF because we’ll be able to select embryos that are most likely to become babies.

“So reduce the time to pregnancy when you do IVF, when we can choose the best embryos for you, and now the cost is even reduced, and then, of course, the limited risk to embryos, also, that it is not likely that there is any embryo damage, because there is nothing invasive being done with embryos.

First time in Nigeria.

In the views of the Chief Embryologist for Nordica Fertility Centre, the non-invasive method of testing for aneuploidy was being made available in Nigeria for the first time.

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“Today, we are introducing this non-invasive testing method for this aneuploidy in Nigeria. Everything we’re doing now is non-invasive, non-invasive, non-invasive. There’s a non-invasive way that you do need to take the sample from the embryo and you can still get the same results of being able to tell whether the embryo can become a baby because you know that is the main thing that we do.

 “When we say pre-implantation genetic testing for aneuploidy, what we mean is before implantation takes place, we know that reproduction is divided into two parts, the fertilization and then the implantation.  IVF takes care of the fertilization.

“We bring the sperm and the egg together and then we replace into the woman and then implantation takes place in the woman. But so this test must be done before we replace the embryo with the woman and the genetic testing. For different reasons, we want to see whether we can do the chromosomes, which means that we can look at the number of the chromosomes.”

The embryologist said the chromosomes are the 23 pairs of strands in the cells.

“When we have an abnormal number, the 23 pairs are supposed to come into one pair, one from each parent. Sometimes you could have only one instead of two, sometimes you can have three instead of two, and this is what we call aneuploidy, that is, an abnormal number of chromosomes.

“We have seen that this is the commonest reason why there is either implantation failure or even recurrent miscarriage. This was a few years ago when we first could do this test for this aneuploidy. It was like a breakthrough. But then, the only way we could screen for aneuploidy traditionally was to take a sample from the embryo and then test it to see whether the chromosomes were normal in number or structure.

 “If the embryos have an abnormal number of chromosomes they can become normal babies for some they can that’s why we see some babies with Down syndrome and so on, if they have normal chromosome numbers they can still sustain life.

The majority can sustain life, but those that can sustain life also turn out to be abnormal babies. So that is why it is so important for us to be able to screen for aneuploidy, and we are saying that we can screen for aneuploidy without having to take a biopsy from the embryo.”

She said there are ways to check if the number of chromosomes has the required copy.

“Ideally we’re supposed to have two per chromosome number, so when we have one, that means one chromosome is missing or when we have three, that means we have additional chromosomes and this has its impacts on individuals in terms of the genetic constituents.

“Some of them are not compatible with life. There are the methods that we use in checking for these chromosome abnormalities, we have the invasive and then the novel method, which is the non-invasive. Professionals do it and has been made easy such that we don’t even have to touch the embryo. The fear of damaging the embryo is not there. We just need the medium, and then we screen and check the medium for chromosome abnormalities, and the embryo is frozen in a safe state.

“So this has helped, and kudos to Nordica. We have gone through the validation protocol and we’ve been certified to proceed. We have a very high score. We have 80 percent being the minimum in terms of the concordance rates.”

Explaining the validation process, the chief embryologists said Nordica obtained as high as 87.5 percent concordance rate.

 “With what we have done, we got greater than 80 percent, about 87.5 percent, which is a very, very good score. And from the analysis as well, we did not have any record of contamination, which is a good one because it has an impact on the results.

So with this, we’ve been certified good to go with the non-invasive method. So this is a plus for us, for our patients, and for our clients to be able to screen their embryos for genetic abnormality without the invasive method. The success rate is 100 percent.”