New Hope for Thalassemia carriers

Superior A.R.T, the center of Assisted Reproduction Technology and Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, announced its success of implementing PGD and PCR technology to screen for inherited diseases, especially Thalassemia, the disease that become a critical problem in Thailand today.

Dr. Somjate Manipalviratn from Superior A.R.T said in the press conference, "About 30%(1) of Thai population carry Thalassemia gene and there are approximately 500,000(2) thalassemia patients receiving this genetic disease from their parents. Each year, over 10,000(3) newborns are affected with Thalassemia and more than 5,000 are struck by the 3 major types of the disease. Also, each year, around 5,000 new married couples (4) who do not have their blood checkups before wedding, are Thalassemia carriers. These statistics come from a research of Dr. Suthat Fucharoen in the Thalassemia Study Project of Institute for Science and Technology Research and Development, Mahidol University. Today, the combination of IVF and preimplantation genetic diagnosis technology enable us to screen for embryo with genetic abnormalities and we can avoid the birth of such affected embryos. We also can screen for other 100 inherited diseases i.e. hemophilia, breast cancer etc. which is the next big step of preimplantation genetic diagnosis technology."

Superior A.R.T now has been successful in providing service of such technology for many Thalassemia carrier couples. One of those couples expressed why they select Superior A.R.T to assist them instead of having a baby naturally and take the risk of having an affected child.

"Before we got married, we knew that our child would have 25% chance to be affected with Thalassemia. It's such a terrible disease. The child will be sick most of the time and need to get blood transfusion so often because of anemia. My husband didn’t want to take the risk, so we had genetic counseling with Superior A.R.T. The doctors and scientists told us that their technology of preimplantation genetic diagnosis would allow us have a baby not affected with Thalasemia. So I decided to get pregnant this way. It had taken us almost a year to get pregnant as I also had other health problem. However, I had never given up and now I have an adorable twin. They are now one-month old and I'm very happy. I'd like to have another child but will wait until my twins turn one year old"

"I've found that the technology of preimplantation genetic diagnosis brought us happiness and screening technology can help avoid the risk. I really can't take risk of having a baby with Thalassemia. I don't want to see my babies in pains and sufferings. Since we have a way to prevent that, why do we have to take risk?” said Piyawadee Kuanpradit.

Today, Superior A.R.T is one of the most modern assisted reproduction technology center in Southeast Asia by the cooperation of Thai doctors who are expert in assisted reproduction technology and Sydney IVF, the leading center for infertility and IVF treatment in Australia, which is globally accepted as world-leading success with blastocyst culture and implantation service.

"We foresee the significance of preventing inherited diseases because its occurrence has increased every year, thus we are aiming Superior A.R.T to be the center of newest hope for married couples who carried genetic diseases. We’d like to show that our Thai doctors and scientists are not less talented than those in other countries. Nowadays, we have many couples, both Thai and foreigners, visit us for genetic counseling and infertility problem. The results have been very satisfying. Moreover, we focus in continued improvement of the quality of our laboratories and the accuracy of our technology as being the leader in assisted reproduction technology and preimplantation genetic diagnosis and to be one of the leading assisted reproduction technology center in the world in the near future", said Sarayuth Assamakorn, Chief Operating Officer of Superior A.R.T.

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