Diagnostic information services company Quest Diagnostics and prenatal testing provider Natera have announced that Quest Diagnostics will offer physicians access to Panorama, a new non-invasive prenatal test developed by Natera. Panorama uses cell-free fetal DNA in circulating maternal blood to screen for chromosomal abnormalities associated with trisomy 21 (Down syndrome), trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome), trisomy 13 (Patau syndrome), and monosomy X (Turner syndrome). Panorama can be used as early as the ninth week of pregnancy.
Physician clients of Quest Diagnostics will be able to forward specimens for testing to Natera’s CLIA-certified laboratory in San Carlos, CA, which developed and validated the lab-developed Panorama test. The test will be made available to physician clients of Quest Diagnostics in certain regions in March and nationwide in the United States in April.
“Cell-free fetal DNA testing is a significant advance in prenatal screening,” says Charles Strom, MD, PhD, senior medical director, genetics, Quest Diagnostics Nichols Institute. Adds Matthew Rabinowitz, PhD, chief executive officer of Natera: “The Panorama test uses advanced SNP-based technology to provide physicians and expecting mothers with safe, reliable screening information, early in the pregnancy.”
Panorama is a non-invasive screening test that provides early information for assessing pregnancy risks. A “low risk” Panorama test result indicates a lower likelihood that a pregnancy is affected. With this information, a woman may consider, in consultation with her physician and results of other medical assessments, whether to pursue or forgo invasive diagnostic testing, which carries a slight risk of miscarriage. A “low risk” Panorama result does not guarantee an unaffected pregnancy. Learn more about the Panorama prenatal test.
