Prenatal Diagnosis

Molecular biology has transformed prenatal diagnosis because it permits an accurate diagnosis to be made from very small quantities of fetal material, even single cells. Although the latter permits the analysis of preimplantation embryos and, perhaps in the future, the analysis of fetal cells enriched from maternal blood, a major current focus is to facilitate rapid, cost—effective diagnoses. In this manner, the use of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) or polymerase chain reaction (...