PGT-A... Does it really work?

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Preimplantation Genetic Testing for Aneuploidy, or PGT-A, a procedure used in IVF to screen embryos for chromosomal abnormalities before implantation, is increasingly facing scrutiny and criticism in 2025 due to mounting evidence of its limited effectiveness and potential drawbacks. Despite its widespread adoption in over half of U.S. IVF cycles, recent studies and expert opinions highlight that PGT-A has not consistently proven to improve pregnancy or live birth rates, with some data suggesting it may even reduce chances for certain patients by leading to the unnecessary discarding of viable embryos that could self-correct and result in healthy births. Technical flaws in the testing process, such as inaccuracies in diagnosing mosaicism or aneuploidy from small biopsies, combined with high additional costs often exceeding thousands of dollars per cycle, have fueled debates about its routine use. Ethical concerns are also rising, including the risk of promoting "designer babies," unnecessary IVF treatments, and embryo abandonment, prompting calls from organizations like the American Society for Reproductive Medicine to question its value as a standard screening tool amid mixed clinical results.

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