The fertility doctors told that they have found out a non- intrusive method to screen IVF embryos for genetic abnormalities.

The recent way involves taking cells from the embryo, which according to the specialists may be a danger.

According to the UK scientists, same checking can be done on cells enveloping the fertilized egg which are unusually thrown away.

This test will show a woman if her baby was probable to have a situation like Down’s syndrome.
It would be persistent and cost effective too.

Lead researcher Elpida Fragouli, from Oxford University, said: “In the ovary, the eggs are surrounded by a cloud of tiny cells, known as cumulus cells”.

“Cumulus cells are routinely stripped off eggs during IVF treatments and are usually discarded, so it should be straightforward to obtain them for analysis.”

The group of Dr Fragouli observed cumulus cells from 26 women undergoing genetic screening prior to IVF treatment.
They detected irregularity in the cumulus cells which emerged to match with genetic errors in the eggs they had enveloped.

Dr Fragouli added: “We are still in the process of establishing the usefulness of these genes as non-invasive markers of egg chromosome status and quality”.

“However, it is interesting that several of these genes are involved in vital cellular functions of the cumulus cells and egg they enclose, such as cell signalling and regulation, hormonal response and cell death, and so they may shed light on the genetic origins of chromosome abnormality.”

UK fertility expert Stuart Lavery said: “It would be much cheaper, much less invasive and something that may have a good clinical application”.

“Potentially what it may allow us to do is to have the ability of picking the best embryo from the best egg which means that we can hopefully move towards single embryo transfer.”

Planting just one fertilized egg in the womb prevents multiple births, which will increase the danger of health for both mother and child.