Comprehensive Chromosome Screening 

Time. Nothing is as frustrating to a couple dealing with infertility as the relentless passing of time.
A negative pregnancy test. A miscarriage. A delay in starting a cycle.  More time taken from reaching your ultimate goal  – bringing home a healthy baby.
 
At RMANJ, we value your time as your most precious resource. And we mean it. We have invested millions of dollars on groundbreaking research to improve care and develop technologies that will help you reach your goal in the most efficient way possible.
 
When it comes to IVF, nothing is as important as selecting the right embryo to transfer. An embryo with the wrong number of chromosomes simply will not make a baby – no matter how pretty it looks under the microscope.
 
Previous attempts to count the number of chromosomes in an embryo – known as FISH-based preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) – are now known to be ineffective. Although a good idea in theory, FISH was never proven to be an accurate way of counting the chromosomes in a single cell. FISH is also limited by the ability to count only a handful of chromosomes, even though we know errors can occur with all 23 pairs of chromosomes.
 
At RMANJ, we dedicated years of research developing a more accurate way to comprehensively count the number of chromosomes in each embryo. Using microarray gene chip technology we tested single cells and found a 99.8% accuracy in predicting the right number of chromosomes. We performed rigorous clinical trials to prove that the results from comprehensive chromosome screening (CCS) are accurate and that CCS improves pregnancy rates. This work was rewarded with the Prize Paper at the 2010 American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) meeting.
 
With RMANJ’s CCS you can believe your test result and be confident that transferring a normal embryo will increase your chance of delivering a healthy baby. Transferring an abnormal embryo can only result in a negative pregnancy test or a miscarriage – potentially-avoidable setbacks. Our unwavering devotion to excellence led to the development of a rapid form of CCS (using PCR) that can be done in time for a fresh embryo transfer, even when the biopsy is performed on day 5 (the blastocyst stage). A biopsy on day 5 removes approximately 1-2% of the embryo’s cells compared with a day 3 biopsy, which strips 10-20% of the cells. Our research has shown day 3 biopsy to be more detrimental to the embryos.
 
Like your time, your embryos are precious and require meticulous care. We spare no expense to ensure that embryos are cultured in an environment designed to nurture their growth. Culture media is carefully checked and adjusted to correspond with the growing embryos’ changing demands. The temperature and oxygen levels are precisely set – all with the goal of culturing your embryos to the blastocyst stage. By waiting until the embryos are blastocysts we can identify which ones are the most likely to develop into a baby. We can then perform a safer, less traumatic biopsy of trophectoderm cells. Blastocysts are then gently transferred at the same stage they would normally reach the uterus in a natural pregnancy.