Patient's question:
A colleague of mine is undergoing in vitro fertilization. He mentioned something about fetal chromosome aneuploidy. Could you please explain what aneuploidy of chromosomes means?Doctor's answer:
Hello, it is an abnormality of a chromosome. "Aneuploidy" is the main cause of human infertility, miscarriage, embryonic arrest, and fetal defects. Aneuploidy is a form of genetic imbalance, resulting from the loss or gain of one or more chromosomes. In non-cancerous diseases, the most common aneuploidy is Down syndrome (also known as Trisomy 21). Children with this condition inherit three copies of chromosome 21 instead of the normal two. This excess genetic information leads to developmental and neurological abnormalities in the affected child. There are also other types, such as Trisomy 18 and Trisomy 13.