Noninvasive Prenatal Diagnosis of Fetal Chromosomal Aneuploidies by Maternal Plasma Nucleic Acid Analysis

The discovery of circulating cell-free fetal nucleic acids in maternal plasma has opened up new possibilities for noninvasive prenatal diagnosis. The potential application of this technology for the noninvasive prenatal detection of fetal chromosomal aneuploidies is an aspect of this field that is being actively investigated. The main challenge of work in this area is the fact that cell-free fetal nucleic acids represent only a minor fraction of the total nucleic acids in maternal plasma.