The advent of chromosomal microarray analysis, also called comparative genome hybridization (CGH) means that it is easier than ever to spot genetic disorders in young children. Virginia Hughes reported last month in Nature Medicine how insurance companies are reluctant to cover these analyses for young children due to their higher cost. Now there’s a paper making the case for CGH to become common practice improve the rate of success in in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures.

In the July issue of Fertility and Sterility, Santiago Munne and his colleagues at Reprogenetics, a private laboratory based in New Jersey, make the case for performing CGH on IVF embryos as young as three days old. Since 50-70% of embryos formed by IVF have major chromosomal abnormalities, preimplantation diagnosis can reduce the number of miscarriages and spontaneous abortions for women undergoing the procedure.

The paper also provides a detailed technical explanation of their methods, emphasizing how to avoid misdiagnosing healthy embryos. Munne says their methods resulted a misdiagnosis rate of only 1.8% with CGH, as compared to a rate of 7% with FISH (fluorescent in situ hybridization), an older technique.

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