The Journal of the American Medical Association recently published an editorial co-written by Roberto Romero, M.D., D.Med.Sci., chief of the National Institutes of Health's Perinatology Research Branch at the Wayne State University School of Medicine.

Dr. Romero, who also is a professor of WSU Molecular Medicine and Genetics at Wayne State University and an attending physician at the Detroit Medical Center, co-wrote "Noninvasive Prenatal Testing and Detection of Maternal Cancer" with Maurice Mahoney, M.D., J.D., professor of Genetics, of Pediatrics, and of Obstetrics and Gynecology for the Yale University School of Medicine. Their editorial was published in the July 13 edition of the journal.

The editorial comments on a research article in the same edition titled "Incidental detection of occult maternal malignancies by noninvasive prenatal testing." The article's lead author is Diana Bianchi, M.D., founding executive director of the Mother Infant Research Institute at Tufts Medical Center, vice chair for Pediatric Research at Floating Hospital for Children, and the Natalie V. Zucker Professor of Pediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology at Tufts University School of Medicine.

"The constellation of findings that would increase the probability of detecting a maternal malignancy is present in only a small fraction of pregnant women," Drs. Romero and Mahoney write. Noninvasive Prenatal Testing "already challenges the ability of clinicians to have patients understand that NIPT is a screening test, not a diagnostic test, that focuses on a limited set of fetal aneuploidies. The possibility of uncovering information relevant to maternal cancer will be a further challenge, yet may have important therapeutic implications for the patient. At this time, there is insufficient evidence about the benefits, risks and costs of reporting the incidental findings …. Given that it is likely that NIPT will increase in the coming years, an active dialogue among stakeholders (obstetricians, patients, laboratories, ethicists, policy makers, etc.) needs to take place to provide informed advice to potentially affected pregnant women and to guide the care of such patients."

here.