Non-invasive prenatal fetal testing can detect early stage cancer in mothers
Monday, June 8, 2015 - 14:00
in Health & Medicine
Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) for chromosomal fetal disorders is used increasingly to test for conditions such as Down's syndrome. NIPT examines DNA from the fetus in the mother's blood, and therefore does not carry the risk of miscarriage involved in invasive testing methods. Now, for the first time, researchers have found another advantage of NIPT; it can detect maternal cancers at an early stage, before symptoms appear.