Prenatal diagnostics in TESA/PESA pregnancies in Denmark 1995-2007: a shift from invasive procedures to nuchal translucency examination

Abstract

Evidently, children born after intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) are at an increased risk of having sex chromosomal abnormalities. Here we evaluate the change in methods used for prenatal diagnostics in patients having ICSI with epididymal or testicular sperm from the introduction of the procedure in 1995 until December 2007. Four hundred and fifty pregnancies resulted in the birth of 553 children. Of the Danish subpopulation 115 (34.2%) received nuchal translucency examination (NT) and 43 (12.8%) received invasive prenatal diagnostics (IPD). IPD was carried out in 11 out of 23 couples (48%) during the period 1995–1998. Since 2002, less than 10% chose to receive IPD. Twenty-one (57%) of 37 Danish women 37–44 years of age underwent IPD compared to only 22 (7.4%) of the 299 women less than 37 years of age (p < 0.001). Conversely, since 1999 the use of NT has gradually increased to a frequency of 88.9% in 2007. The partners of vasectomized men had significantly more often NT performed compared to those of non-vasectomized men. IPD were not otherwise associated with the etiology of azoospermia. This study documents a shift in prenatal diagnostics from IPD to NT for testicular sperm aspiration/percutaneous epididymal sperm aspiration (TESA/PESA) couples.