‘Thalassemia Major’ is a genetic disease that occurs when a child inherits two mutated genes, one from each parent. The disease will create severe anemia and also affect the bone marrow’s ability to produce RBC which ultimately leads to death within the first decade of life, if proper treatment is not given to the child.
Mr.and Mrs.Sahdev Singh Solanki’s five year old son was suffering from Thalassemia Major. He was then advised a bone marrow transplantation from an HLA-identical donor, which is the best solution. Due to the unavailability of matching HLA donors for the transplant, the couple decided to opt for IVF with HLA matching with Pre-Genetic Diagnosis & Screening test (PGD and PGS). This would allow them to have a pregnancy which would give them a healthy child, whose Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) system would match with that of the affected child.
The couple came to Nova IVI Fertility, Ahmedabad. The medical experts at Nova to do this unique treatment were led by Dr. Manish Banker, Medical Director, Nova IVI Fertility. Mrs. Patel had 18 embryos biopsied, of which only one embryo was found to have matching HLA, normal on PGD testing, and was thus transferred. The embryo transfer was successful in its first cycle and resulted in a successful pregnancy, delivering a healthy baby. The baby was found to be 10/10 HLA matched with the sibling and a bone marrow transplant is planned in future for the affected sibling.