The Questions We Should Really Be Asking After Reading the NY Times Article About Prenatal cfDNA Screening For Microdeletions
By Robert Resta,
The DNA Exchange
| 01. 08. 2022
As the genetic counseling world knows all too well, the New York Times recently published a story about prenatal cfDNA screening for chromosomal microdeletion syndromes. The gist of the article is that screening for microdeletions has a high number of false positives that produce significant patient anxiety and, in a very small number of cases, patients have elected to terminate a pregnancy before confirmatory diagnostic testing. The Times piece generated 1100+ comments on its site, including many from genetic counselors and physicians, not to mention vitriolic sturm und drang on various social media.
Clearly the article touched a collective genetic counselor nerve — a lot of the reaction has been more reflexive than reflective. Which is kind of surprising, considering that cfDNA for microdeletions is a so-so screen for a handful of rare conditions that genetic counselors have not widely agreed should be included on these tests.
Most of the criticism centered on the article not always making a clear and consistent technical distinction between a screaming test, er, uh, I mean, a screening test (which cfNDA is) and...
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