WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Researchers at the National Institutes of Health found that abnormal results on a blood test, known as a prenatal cell-free DNA test, could reveal cancer in expecting mothers.
The test analyzes DNA fragments released in the bloodstream by the placenta, helping the doctors to determine the baby's gender or to detect an extra chromosome.
The scientists claimed that they discovered cancers like colon, breast, lung, kidney, lymph gland, bile duct and pancreatic cancer in 48 percent of pregnant women.
Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the study involved cancer screening test of 107 pregnant women using whole-body MRI scans, standard diagnostic testing and cell-free DNA tests.
Of the total participants, 52 women were diagnosed with cancer.
'They looked like healthy, young women and they reported themselves as being healthy,' said senior researcher Dr. Diana Bianchi, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, told the Associated Press.
The researchers concluded that further studies are required to validate that the prenatal cell-free DNA test could detect cancer in expecting mothers even if they don't have any clinical symptoms.
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