a prospective study to evaluate the gender prediction of blastocysts by using cell-free dna within a culture medium

Background: preimplantation genetic diagnosis (pgd) has been used as an option for couples with the possibility of having a baby with a genetic disorder. the common method for performing this test involves isolating 1 cell from day 3 or a few cells from day 5 embryos and performing genetic studies on the cell-extracted dna. this method is invasive and can cause abortion after implantation in the uterus. because of this, 2 noninvasive methods for performing a pgd have been studied: pgd using blastocyst fluid and pgd using embryo culture medium. objective: the aim of this study is to determine the sensitivity of the polymerase chain reaction (pcr) technique to detect the y chromosome using cell-free dna within a culture medium for gender prediction of blastocysts. materials and methods: in this study, the gender of 30 embryos on day 5 was determined using embryonic dna extraction from the culture medium and the pcr technique to evaluate the sex-determining region y and fragile x mental retardation genes. then, the accuracy was assessed using ultrasound. results: the results of the pcr technique showed that 7 embryos were male, but an ultrasound revealed that 13 were male. conclusion: the given results indicated that, because of the low amount of dna extracted from the culture medium, the diagnosis of the existence of the y chromosome by this method is still not accurate enough for detecting the gender of the embryo.