Prenatal diagnosis of fetal abnormality using fetal cells in maternal circulation

Abstract

The possibility of performing an early noninvasive prenatal diagnosis on fetal cells isolated from maternal peripheral blood is an important goal for modern obstetric care. A recent retrospective Italian study was carried out by accessing the results of cytogenetic analysis of amniotic fluid in women with less than and greater than 35 years and performed during years 1995 to 1996. The entity of the trafficking of the fetal cells depends by many factors such as complicated pregnancies and by the modes of releasing them in maternal circulation. The major limitation that continues to overwhelm the clinical use of fetal cells is their extremely low number into maternal circulation, considered not yet sufficient to perform an accurate genetic analysis. An elevated number of fetal cells in maternal blood have been observed in some pregnancy-related disorders and as pregnancies affected by fetal trisomies, pre-eclampsia, eclampsia, intrauterine growth restriction, or polyhydramnios with respect to normal pregnancies.