ESHRE Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis Consortium: data collection III (May 2001).

The ESHRE PGD Consortium was formed in 1997 to undertake a long-term study of the efficacy and clinical outcome of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). Here, the third report of the ESHRE PGD Consortium is presented, collating data received from 25 centres on referrals, cycles, pregnancies and babies born after PGD. The second report, published in December 2000, reported on 886 referrals, a total of 1318 started cycles (of which 465 for aneuploidy screening, 386 for fluorescence in-situ hybridization (FISH) and 385 for PCR going beyond oocyte retrieval), 163 pregnancies and 162 children born. This year, 675 referrals from 12 centres were added giving a total of 1561 referrals, 370 regular PGD cycles, 334 PGD-aneuploidy screening (PGD-AS) cycles and 78 cycles for social sexing from 24 centres and 215 pregnancies and 117 babies from 12 centres. Because more in-depth information was asked for the cycles, this year's data will be shown separately as well as cumulatively. One striking feature of this year's data collection is the appearance of the first data for gender screening on preimplantation embryos for social reasons. The ethical concerns regarding social sexing will be discussed, as well as the forthcoming changes in timing of data collection. When the data collection was discussed at the last meeting of the members of the ESHRE PGD Consortium in Lausanne, Switzerland (June, 2001), it appeared that the current system of data collection, although yielding results very quickly, showed fundamental flaws. The ESHRE PGD Consortium Steering Committee intends to remedy to these problems, on the one hand by introducing a new type and timing of data collection, and on the other hand by re-analysing and correcting the data which have already been sent in during the past 4 years.