Recurrent Miscarriages – causes and prospects for patients

Yes, certainly, we recommend it. There are trials already investigating the PGT-A results in egg donation programs. We even have our intensive personal experience, and we know that the male factor always impacts embryo development. That’s why in a situation when a husband or partner is older than 40 years old or has some abnormalities in sperm analysis, it’s always recommended doing PGT-A.

We see that about 20 to 50% of the embryos in egg donation programs are abnormal. It’s very precious information because we do a very strict investigation of the donors beforehand. We even do trial fertilization with the sperm donors just to be sure that the egg quality is perfect. However, when we do an egg donation program with fertilization and sperm has some defects, we always see some embryos have several abnormalities. Yes, I strongly recommend PGT-A, even an egg donation program.

We do not like so-called empiric antibiotic administration. We always investigate all the culture in the uterus because we know that, in most cases, it’s a mixed culture. Several pathogens are treated with antibiotics, but antibiotics will be different. We have a lot of trials on the culture inside the uterus. We know that chronic endometritis is associated with Gardnerella.

That’s why we usually administer antibiotics which are very painful for this mode of pathogens. Usually, we have to administer it for not less than 10 days, but after that, we should do a biopsy of the endometrium to be sure that this treatment was successful. Only after that we can go on and follow the next step.

This is a question from a dramatic medical history, I see it, and I know it. In medicine, there are some trends, and several years ago, we sought a trend that we should administer Prednisone, ASS and Heparin, but we do not do it widely. According to actual data, we know that there are specific conditions when it’s useful, but in white practice, unfortunately, it is not beneficial.

However, these medications are not indifferent, so we should be very accurate when administering them. It’s a rare situation when we administer Prednisone usually do this administration when there are some autoimmune problems, for example, with the thyroid. If you have an autoimmune process in the thyroid, it’s an indication to administer a very low Prednisone dosage. Please don’t administer it by yourself always consult it with your physician.

If we talk about ASS and Heparin, we should control the blood because sometimes, if we won’t control the blood levels, we can produce the risk of bleeding because of administering this medication. We shouldn’t administer medication because they will contradict each other. That’s why we are inclined to administer not more than 4.

There are different names in different countries. There is Leucostim, it’s the original medication, the cheaper one is Lupomax, and there are several cheaper biosimilars, but they are not that effective as we expect. In our practice, we use the original medication called Leucostim and the biosimilar Lupomax.

These are different names of the same procedure. PGT-A is pre-implantation genetic testing of the embryos, NGS24 is just a certain name of technology by which we do pre-implantation genetic tests on all the embryos.

Normally, when we say pre-implantation genetic testing, we mean NGS24, but I know that sometimes some clinics call it PGT, but it’s not a very good idea, it’s better to use PGT only when using NGS24. PGD24, it’s a rare situation when we use that name because it’s just a combination of two names, so it’s not the correct one, we should use PGT-A, which means pre-implementation genetic testing of the embryos.

PGT-M is used when we are investigating monogenic diseases. NGS24 is it means that there that we perform pre-implantation genetic testing of all the chromosomes. These are names of quite similar investigations, but NGS24 always means PGT-A.

Yes, for sure. As I mentioned in the presentation, advanced reproductive age is associated with elevated miscarriage. In patients of advanced reproductive age, we see a higher rate of genetically abnormal embryos. Even when we talk about the egg donation program, we should remember that when we’re getting older, we collect many diseases, which play a role of concomitant pathology, which can also impact the pregnancy course.

That’s why for sure the age of the recipient is a risk factor for miscarriage, but we have very good statistics, and so we see that when we apply for individualized luteal phase support, we make it in more intensive mode to prevent the risk associated with concomitant pathology and with the age we can minimize the risk factor for miscarriage in egg donation program associated with the age of the recipient.

It was a very fancy trend in medicine about 10 years ago, we all tried to use it because we aim to help patients with recurrent miscarriages. For physicians who specialize in such cases, it’s also very difficult. We can relate to your pain, that’s why we do our best, and we want to try all the new suggestions and proposals in therapy to obtain good results.

We started this practice at that time, it was just like a pilot investigation, but times passes, and now we know that it’s not that effective, and we use it only when we have specific indications not associated with recurrent miscarriages. It’s usually associated with immune defects or antiphospholipid syndrome.

There are sometimes patients after oncology or organ transplantation only, in that group of patients, we can use such medication, but it’s not the white practice, so I do not recommend it to all the patients suffering from recurrent miscarriages.

It’s very interesting and innovative, and now we’re collecting our own experience on that, but we do not have such extensive knowledge on that. It’s not considered evidence-based medicine right now, so we cannot recommend it as a routine practice, but it can be a suggestion to use IVIG or intralipids.

After some years of applying, we will understand if it’s not as effective and as prospective as we wanted, or Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) will be an approved technology to minimize the risk of miscarriage. Unfortunately, I cannot provide objective information because we still collect the data and our own experience and available literature on this topic.

I would be a bad advisor because I’m the person who never gives up, and I always try to inspire my patients and support them. We always stay in touch after IVF treatment and just go hand in hand for several years after. It’s a rare situation when we have to stop without any result. Sometimes in the toughest cases, when we know that there were so many dramatic situations where, unfortunately, it’s very risky to do embryo transfer to the patient’s uterus, we apply a surrogacy program.

To be honest with you, in case of miscarriages, it’s a rare situation. From my point of view, after each miscarriage, we should stop a bit and just evaluate all the risk factors once again, but miscarriages are not the situation when we have to be desperate, we have enough technology and enough tools to make your pregnancy continue that’s why I don’t think that anybody should stop IVF treatment because of miscarriages.

Each step, each problem should be considered a problem that should be positive and should result in a healthy baby. That’s why we should do our best each time in the toughest cases at the line of desperation, we can do a surrogacy program, but in most cases, we even don’t need to do it, we have good results in patients with recurrent miscarriages, so never give up.

Certainly, yes. It’s a gold standard for preparing the endometrium. It’s a very significant moment to do hysteroscopy before the attempt of embryo transfer. We usually try to do a hysteroscopy, then we do the embryo transfer the following cycle or the second cycle.

In Russia, we can do an embryo transfer for women not older than 50 years old. We have lots of patients where we do the programs when they are 45-46, but we do transfers to the patients who are not over 50.

Recently, we had a patient who wanted 2 children all her life, a boy and a girl, so we did a surrogacy program for her after 2 years because it’s just not safe to do embryo transfer for patients over 50 years old. Now her dream came true, she has a boy and girl, so the answer is that if you mean the embryo transfer for the patient, the maximum age is 50 years old.