Study finds massively parallel sequencing can detect fetal
aneuploidies, including Down syndromeFebruary 10th, 2012 in
Health / In a study to be presented today at the Society for
Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting,
in Dallas, Texas, researchers will report findings that indicate
that massively parallel sequencing can be used to diagnose fetal
aneuploidies, including Down syndrome, Edwards syndrome, Patau
syndrome and Turner syndrome. Because of the importance of the
clinical data, the abstract, entitled Genome Wide Fetal
Aneuploidy Detection by Sequencing of Maternal Plasma DNA:
Diagnostic Accuracy in a Prospective, Blinded, Multicenter
Study, was given late-breaker status. The study demonstrated
that it was possible to use massively parallel sequencing of
maternal plasma DNA in combination with a proprietary algorithm
to detect the three most prevalent fetal aneuploidies (an
abnormal number of chromosomes in the fetus). With this clinical
evidence, this prenatal test may be inco