Should non-invasive prenatal testing be recommended for patients who achieve pregnancy with PGT?

TL;DR

The study explores whether non-invasive prenatal testing can replace invasive testing after preimplantation genetic testing in pregnancies.

Contribution

It provides evidence that non-invasive testing is a viable alternative to invasive testing in PGT cycles.

Findings

Non-invasive testing showed similar clinical outcomes to invasive testing in PGT patients.

Patients in the non-invasive group were older on average but had comparable pregnancy results.

Non-invasive testing is suitable for PGT but has limited effectiveness in PGT-M cases.

Abstract

To determine whether non-invasive prenatal testing is an alternative testing option to preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) in pregnant patients.

This was a retrospective study of the clinical outcomes of patients who underwent PGT and invasive or non-invasive pregnancy testing after euploid blastocyst transfer at our IVF centre between January 2017 and December 2022.

In total, 321 patients were enrolled in this study, 138 (43.0%) received invasive pregnancy testing, and 183 (57.0%) patients underwent non-invasive testing. The mean age of the patients in Group 2 was higher than that of the patients in Group 1 (35.64 ± 4.74 vs. 31.04 ± 4.15 years, P < 0.001). The basal LH and AMH levels were higher in Group 1 than in Group 2 (4.30 ± 2.68 vs. 3.40 ± 1.88, P = 0.003; 5.55 ± 11.22 vs. 4.09 ± 3.55, P = 0.012), but the clinical outcomes were not significantly different. Furthermore, the clinical outcomes of patients undergoing invasive testing were similar to those of patients undergoing non-invasive testing with the same PGT indication.

Our results suggest that non-invasive pregnancy testing is a suitable alternative option for detecting the foetal chromosomal status in a PGT cycle. However, the usefulness of non-invasive testing in PGT-M patients is still limited.

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