Old Questions, New Paradigms: Ethical, Legal, and Social Complications of Noninvasive Prenatal Testing

摘要

Recent rapid changes in prenatal care have resulted from the discovery that cell-free fetal DNA (cffDNA) circulates in the maternal bloodstream during pregnancy (Lo et al. 1997). The discovery of cffDNA in maternal serum, combined with sequencing and bioinformatic techniques, has allowed the detection of an anomalous number of chromosomes in a developing fetus (Chiu et al. 2008; Fan et al. 2008). For the first time, clinicians can offer genetic testing in the prenatal period without using invasive procedures, such as amniocentesis, that carry a slight risk of miscarriage.