The Routinization of Prenatal Testing

Abstract

By now everyone is familiar with the recent accomplishments of the Human Genome Project. Accomplished in ten, rather than the initially expected fifteen, years, the human genome has been fully sequenced. Genetics is in its golden age. A product of the technology era, genetics has, in a short time, offered vast amounts of information. This increased knowledge promises potential benefits for our understanding of the disease process and, ultimately, treatment and prevention. The rapid flow of information, however, presents complications and challenges. It can complicate the decision making process for those involved in genetic testing, not only because our knowledge of genetics is more complex, but because there is so much more potential information to obtain. The sheer quantity of information for both researcher, clinician and especially patient, can be overwhelming. In addition, our ability to glean predictive or susceptibility information has vastly exceeded our ability to develop cures for diseases; patients can increasingly identify risks for conditions that they can do little to avoid.