NON – INVASIVE PRENATAL TEST – NIPT
it is carried out by taking blood from the pregnant woman, as a simple blood test
fetal genetic material (free fetal DNA) circulating in the blood of every pregnant woman that can be detected and studied
this is a test to rule out specific genetic conditions, such as Down‘s syndrome, trisomy 13 and 18 and many other chromosomal abnormalities
after the 10th week of gestation, in order to ensure satisfactory detection of free fetal DNA and to obtain reliable results
non-invasive method and therefore has absolutely no risk to the fetus
in contrast, amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling are two invasive methods with the main disadvantage of the risk of miscarriage, which is up to 0.5 %, but the advantage of these invasive methods is the high reliability of 99.9 % for all chromosomal abnormalities
therefore the risks and benefits of each method should be assessed according to the evidence available and the decision should be taken into consideration by the pregnant woman
the detection rate of Down’s syndrome with this method is about 99.5% and for the other most common chromosomal abnormalities (trisomy 13 and trisomy 18) it is 95 – 98%