Natera's Panorama® NIPT Assay:
The Panorama® NIPT assay, offered by Natera, analyzes fetal-placental, cell-free DNA isolated from maternal plasma as early as nine weeks into gestation. It screens for fetal aneuploidies and microdeletion syndromes. Chromosome abnormalities identified by the Panorama® NIPT assay include trisomy 21 (Down syndrome), trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome), trisomy 13 (Patau syndrome), monosomy X (Turner syndrome), and triploidy. The test, which has been validated in both high and low risk pregnant women of all ages, can identify common aneuploides, sex chromosome aneuploides, microdeletions, and fetal sex.
Natera indicates the Panorama® NIPT assay can be used in pregnant women as early as nine weeks gestational age. In addition, the test reports out the fetal fraction contained in the patient sample and indicates whether the fetal DNA is sufficiently present for the assay to be valid. The test can identify vanishing twins, which is a common cause of false positive results, and can be used in twins for more than singleton pregnancies.
The Panorama® NIPT assay uses single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) technology and reports out results as a risk score. The test is reported to have sensitivity and specificity for T21, T18, and T13 of >99% and 100%; 98.2% and 100%; >99% and 100%, respectively.
