PMA Towards Expanded Preconception Tests ?

The Ethics Committee has given a favorable opinion on the enlargement to all the couples who wish it, of the preconception tests, which make it possible to detect the risks of transmitting to a child a serious genetic disease.

The National Consultative Committee of Ethics (CCNE), gave this 25th September its opinion around the issues of biotech.
Among the topics discussed, the possible extension of preconception tests, to allow couples who wish to identify even before pregnancy the risk of having a child with a serious genetic disease.

As reported by 'Le Monde', preconception tests allow "to identify healthy carriers of genetic diseases, and couples at risk of transmitting them to their offspring. These tests, which already exist, are currently reserved for couples carrying a disease of a particular gravity (cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease, spinal muscular atrophy, etc.) already identified.


Today, in the general gas case, a couple who wishes to have a child is not authorized to perform this preconception diagnosis (CPD), unless it presents a particular risk, particularly because he already has a child carrying of a genetic disease.

These tests make it possible to detect so-called "recessive" diseases: neither parent is ill, but they both carry the defective gene. In this case, there is a risk of 4 for the child to be a carrier of the disease, sick or healthy carrier himself.

Genetic testing: towards access for all couples

The Ethics Committee proposes making these tests accessible to all couples who wish to test a series of diseases predetermined by the authorities. He even advocates reimbursement by the Health Insurance. Their unit cost is estimated at 200-300 €.

Once this risk has been identified through CPD, parents may choose to use prenatal fetal diagnosis, or preimplantation diagnosis (PGD), to differentiate between embryos affected by the disease. genetics of unaffected embryos, which will be reimplanted. A course already proposed to couples identified as carriers of the defective gene.

These preconception tests are already authorized in other European countries, as well as in the United States, which pushes some families to go abroad to realize them, sometimes without any medical accompaniment.