Microsort
Microsort is a practice used to separate (X) and (Y) chromosomes which will yield the male or female embryo before the sperm microinjection (ICSI) or intraurine insemination (IUI). The success rate of this method is 80% for baby boys and 90% for baby girls. Microsort method can be applied together with fertilization and also with the in vitro fertilization treatment. As such, gender selection can be applied more cost-effectively in comparison to PGT.
Methods, Applications and Examples of Treatment
1. Microsort + Intraurine insemination (IUI)
With this method of treatment, the menstrual cycle of the future mother is monitored for fertilization. The sperm sorted with microsort used for fertilization at the time of ovulation. As such the success rate of 90% is achieved if the parents want to have a baby girl and 80% success rate if the parents want to have a baby boy. The rate of conception changes depending on the age of the mother.
2. Microsort + Microinjection (ICSI)
With this method of treatment, the egg cell increase operation is initiated under the supervision of the physician based on the menstrual cycle of the future mother. When the egg cells reach the desired amount, the injection is applied to trigger ovulation and the OPU (oocyte pick-up) is planned. The fertilization is performed by way of merging the egg cells picked up with the sperm sorted with the microsort method according to the gender selected by the parents. As such the success rate of 90% is achieved if the parents want to have a baby girl and 80% success rate if the parents want to have a baby boy. The rate of conception changes depending on the mother’s age. The conception rate is higher compared to intraurine insemination (IUI) as the in vitro fertilization method is used.
3. Microsort + Microinjection (ICSI) + PGT
With this method of treatment, the egg cell increase operation is initiated under the supervision of the physician based on the menstrual cycle of the future mother. When the egg cells reach the desired amount, the injection is applied to trigger ovulation and the OPU (oocyte pick-up) is planned. The fertilization is performed by way of merging the egg cells picked up with the sperm sorted with the microsort method according to the gender selected by the parents. Then the embryos are evaluated by PGT method in terms of both gender and chromosomal disease (e.g. Down syndrome). As such, the parents have a healthy baby with the desired gender by 99.9%. When the operation is conducted with the sperm sorted with microsort, high number embryos with the desired gender are created. As such, the chance of selecting the number and quality of embryos to be transferred to the future mother is increased.
The Main Differences Between PGT With Microsort and PGT and the Advantages
In the in vitro fertilization treatments applied only with PGT without using microsort, the sperm cells taken for fertilization bear either X chromosome (female) or Y chromosome (male). Therefore as the fertilization is done by random selection of sperm while the eggs are being fertilized, the number of the embryos with the gender desired by the parents might be limited.
For example; 10 eggs were collected from the mother and such eggs were fertilized with the randomly selected sperm without using the microsort method. As a result the embryos would be female by 50% and male by 50% which means 5 female embryos and 5 male embryos. Given that some of them are not healthy, the number of healthy embryos with the gender desired by the parents might be limited.
However, when fertilization is done with the sperm sorted by microsort method,
For example; 10 eggs were collected from the mother and such eggs were fertilized with the sperm sorted by microsort method. This results in embryos with the desired gender by 80%-90% which means that 8-9 embryos would be of the desired gender. Even if a couple of them are not healthy, the conception rate is increased and the embryos remaining after the transfer can be frozen to be kept for future pregnancies as a lot of number of embryos with the desired gender are available now.
