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Valenti hypothesized in 1972 that the procedure he used to obtain fetal tissue could be used to obtain fetal blood, and in 1973, he was able to sample fetal vessels; fetoscopy was used and refined between 1974 and 1983 as a prenatal test to determine fetal status as well as obtain fetal blood and perform transfusions in some cases. [7]
Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing, or NIPT, is a simple blood draw that screens for chromosomal abnormalities of a fetus while still in utero. When this screening was first performed it was used to determine the sex of a fetus, now it is also used to find aneuploidies in fetal DNA. [6]
There are three purposes of prenatal diagnosis: (1) to enable timely medical or surgical treatment of a condition before or after birth, (2) to give the parents the chance to abort a fetus with the diagnosed condition, and (3) to give parents the chance to prepare psychologically, socially, financially, and medically for a baby with a health problem or disability, or for the likelihood of a ...
The most common abnormality the test can screen is trisomy 21 (Down syndrome).In addition to Down syndrome, the triple and quadruple screens assess risk for fetal trisomy 18 also known as Edwards syndrome, open neural tube defects, and may also detect an increased risk of Turner syndrome, triploidy, trisomy 16 mosaicism, fetal death, Smith–Lemli–Opitz syndrome, and steroid sulfatase ...
Such tests show a sensitivity of about 99% and a specificity of more than 99.9%. Therefore, they cannot be regarded as diagnostic procedures but may be used to confirm a positive maternal screening test such as a first trimester screening or ultrasound markers of the condition. [61] [62] Trisomy 13 and 18
However, because AFP-based screening only has an 80-85% sensitivity for neural tube and abdominal wall defects, [2] many maternal-fetal medicine specialists and some obstetricians do not bother ordering an AFP test and instead perform detailed "Level-II" ultrasounds on all of their patients, which, in competent hands, results in a 97% ...
While recognizing the aforementioned risks, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommend that prenatal screening, or diagnostic testing for aneuploidy via procedures like amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling, be discussed with and offered to all patients regardless of maternal age or risk profile. [5]
Recent studies have discovered that chorionic villi can be a rich source of fetal stem cells, multipotent mesenchymal stem cells. [ 10 ] [ 11 ] [ 12 ] A potential benefit of using fetal stem cells over those obtained from embryos is that they side-step ethical concerns among anti-abortion activists by obtaining pluripotent lines of ...