It is a test to detect chromosomal abnormalities in the fetus that has arrived in Spain a few years ago as a non-invasive alternative to amniocentesis. It is not carried out in bulk or is funded by the public health system. If you want to do it, you have to go to a private center and it costs about 700 euros.
Is a fetal DNA analysis able to detect with 99 percent reliability the most frequent chromosomal abnormalities in the fetus. But also, according to the Annual Conference of the European Society of Human Genetics, also detects three types of cancer in the mother early, that is before they show symptoms. These are ovarian carcinoma, follicular lymphoma and Hodgkin lymphoma.
Very possibly this analysis will eventually replace amniocentesis, since the same results can be achieved in the fetus, and according to this nine finding, also very useful information about the mother, and also has no risks for both as it does amniocentesis .
The test consists of extracting a blood sample from the mother from which fetal DNA is isolated. This floating DNA of the fetus present in the mother's blood can be used to scan genetic problems and detect specific hereditary diseases, such as Down syndrome, but also many more diseases apart from traditional trisomy syndromes.
The study has tested the analysis in more than 6,000 pregnant women to examine other chromosomes than usual, and identified, without waiting, "three different genomic alterations in three women similar to those found in cancer."
These patients were referred to perform more medical tests for cancer and finally they were diagnosed with the presence of three tumors in a very early stage: ovarian carcinoma, follicular lymphoma and Hodgkin lymphoma.
Researchers do not want to hurry and ensure that the study "does not offer real and reliable data," that it may have been a casual finding, and that it is not really what they were looking for. But maybe they have found a treasure.
The analysis of the DNA in blood is able to identify mutations in the DNA of any person, so a new window could be opened for the early detection of cancer in women.
