New measures to diagnose Down syndrome in the fetus

According to a reporter in Tokyo, the Center for Growth Health Research and four major universities in Japan from September will apply a new, more prenatal prenatal diagnosis method to pregnant women and their babies. by testing the blood of pregnant women.

Japanese scientists have conducted clinical research with the aim of collecting data in Japanese pregnant women over 35 years old, who have high rates of anomalous chromosomes.

To implement this new diagnostic approach, scientists test the fetal DNA by simply taking a small amount of blood from the test pregnant woman.

In addition to being able to correctly identify over 99% of fetuses with Down syndrome, compared to amniotic fluid testing, a blood test for pregnant women can be performed earlier than 5 weeks, when women are about 10 weeks.

Because the phenomenon of late birth in Japan is increasingly common, the need for amniotic fluid testing to determine Down syndrome is increasing.

According to statistics, the number of such test cases in 2008 reached about 13,000 cases. Tests for amniotic fluid have 100% accuracy, but also cause a miscarriage rate of 0.5%. Therefore, scientists predict that the number of pregnant women who want to diagnose prenatal diagnosis by new blood test will increase.