TY - JOUR AU - Sermon, Karen PY - 2017 DA - 2017/10/26 TI - Preimplantation Genetic Screening JO - OBM Genetics SP - 009 VL - 01 IS - 04 AB - The main aim of PGS has always been to improve IVF outcome, especially in patient groups assumed to have higher rates of chromosomally abnormal embryos, such as patients of advanced maternal age. In that sense, PGS is quite different from other types of screening as discussed in other papers in this issue. Today it bears no doubt that blastocysts found to be uniformly aneuploid in a biopsy will fail to implant, or worse, will implant and lead to a pregnancy and birth carrying a major chromosomal abnormality, such as trisomy 21. However, it has been argued that a cohort of embryos cannot be improved, and that PGS is only a selection method for which efficiency has not been proven. PGS would never increase the live birth rate for that given cohort. The current debate on whether PGS should be applied and to which patients it should be offered has shifted from the effect on live birth rates towards other outcomes such as the reduction of transfers and of miscarriages. Taking the undeniable higher cost of IVF into account when PGS is included, what is the benefit to the patient? The views on this question differ on whether PGS is an additional source of income for the IVF clinic and may or may not balance the extra cost for cryopreservation and embryo transfer for the patients, or whether society pays for IVF treatments and may decide not to want to invest in a medical act that does not improve the primary goal of IVF, i.e. having a healthy child. PGS is also often presented as diminishing patient anxiety and stress through decreasing unnecessary embryos transfers and miscarriages, although no data on this assertion are available. Whether this emotional argument will show to be strong enough to add PGS as a routine part of an IVF treatment remains to be seen. SN - 2577-5790 UR - https://doi.org/10.21926/obm.genet.1704009 DO - 10.21926/obm.genet.1704009 ID - Sermon2017 ER -