The American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine (SMFM) have issued new guidelines replacing previous guidance on prenatal genetic screening. The guidelines are restricted to subscribers and members. This post summarizes Practice Bulletin No. 226, offers brief commentary, and invites your thoughts on the new guidelines. Continue reading ACOG/SMFM Issue New Guidelines for Prenatal Genetic Screening
Changing the way labs bill for genetic tests?
It’s hard to imagine a more mind-numbingly boring topic than billing codes for medical tests … and yet those codes mean the difference between profit and loss to commercial labs, and often the difference between whether patients can get the tests that their providers recommend. Continue reading Changing the way labs bill for genetic tests?
Nuffield Council and BBC report spur change
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, a UK-based group that issues carefully considered (though not legally binding) reports on bioethics issues, made a number of important recommendations regarding prenatal testing in its 2017 report, Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT). In a blog post nearly two years later, however, the Council expressed dismay that so little action had been taken to alleviate their concerns. Remarkably, that blog post and a troubling BBC report issued the same day have apparently led to some important changes in just a few months.
Continue reading Nuffield Council and BBC report spur change
No US commercial NIPS labs fully follow ACMG’s 2016 guidelines
None of the commercial laboratories that offer prenatal cell-free DNA screening (also known as non-invasive prenatal screening, or NIPS) in the United States follow all of the guidance from ACMG (the American College of Medical Genetics & Genomics). A new study published in Genetics in Medicine by a multidisciplinary group of experts assessed materials from all the US labs currently offering NIPS, and found a great deal of variability in their adherence to the 2016 ACMG guidelines.
In a press release, Brian Skotko, MD, of MassGeneral Hospital for Children, the paper’s lead author, noted, “It’s been more than two years since the ACMG published its recommendations about NIPS, and we could not find a single commercial lab in the U.S. that adhered to all of the recommendations.”
While multiple professional societies have issued recommendations for offering and returning results from NIPS, the 2016 ACMG recommendations were unique in providing guidance not only for health care providers, but also for laboratories marketing and conducting NIPS.
The authors of this just-published study included several of the experts who contributed to the 2016 ACMG recommendations, and also included several PIRC members with expertise in bioethics and patient/provider education. The table detailing the results is publicly available here on the PIRC website, and the group has pledged to update this table as new information is made available.
The original article (available to Genetics in Medicine subscribers) is available online:
Skotko BG, Allyse M, Bajaj K, Best BG, Klugman S, Leach M, Meredith S, Michie M, Stoll K, Gregg AR. Adherence of Cell-free DNA Noninvasive Prenatal Screens to ACMG Recommendations. Genetics in Medicine online advance publication. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41436-019-0485-2
PIRC members at Prenatal Dx meeting
PIRC members Marsha Michie and Stephanie Meredith are speaking this morning at the Cambridge HealthTech Institute’s 6th annual Advances in Prenatal Molecular Diagnostics meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Both Marsha and Stephanie are on the opening panel (with Brian Skotko and Louis Muglia), on NIPT In The Clinic. Contact us if you’d like more information about our presentations!
No safety differences between cfDNA screening and diagnostic testing?
One of the major selling points for prenatal cell-free DNA (cfDNA) screening has been that it will reduce the number of miscarriages resulting from invasive diagnostic tests–amniocentesis and CVS. However, a randomized controlled trial in France, just published (paywall) in the Journal of the American Medical Association, has found no evidence of this promised benefit.
The SAFE21 Study Group randomized “high risk” pregnant women in 57 French clinics to either go straight to invasive diagnosis or, alternately, to have cfDNA screening first. Those in the cfDNA arm of the trial received invasive testing only if the cfDNA screen returned positive results. There were just over 1000 women assigned to each arm of the trial. In the cfDNA arm, nearly all the women had cfDNA screening, and 84 women (8.3%) had follow-up invasive diagnosis. Yet the miscarriage rate for the cfDNA arm was identical to that for the invasive testing arm, in which 751 women (76.5%) had invasive diagnosis. In each arm 8 women (0.8%) experienced miscarriage. Furthermore, in the invasive testing arm, researchers discovered 11 chromosomal anomalies (1.5%) that would not have been found using cfDNA screening. Continue reading No safety differences between cfDNA screening and diagnostic testing?
First baby born in stem cell transplant study
Baby Elianna Constantino has made history. The world’s first in utero stem cell transplant trial has reported the birth of a baby with alpha thalassemia after giving the fetus a blood transfusion enriched with the mother’s blood stem cells. Elianna was born to Nichelle Obar and Chris Constantino in February. The couple, who are from Hawaii, are both carriers of alpha thalassemia, and their fetus was critically ill during the second trimester. But researchers at UC San Francisco and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland are conducting an early-stage trial that aims to help babies with alpha thalassemia using their mothers’ stem cells. Continue reading First baby born in stem cell transplant study
Natera pays $11M for fraudulent billing
We are a bit late in reporting this ruling, but in March Natera settled with the US government for over $11 million to resolve claims of fraudulent billing for its Panorama prenatal cfDNA screening test. The government held that from 2013 through 2016, Natera knowingly submitted improper claims for payment from TRICARE (the insurance program for the US military), the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, and Medicaid. By using improper billing codes, Natera misrepresented the services for which they were billing, causing these agencies to pay for testing that they would not otherwise cover – such as cfDNA screening for low-risk pregnancies and for microdeletion syndromes. Continue reading Natera pays $11M for fraudulent billing
Are professional societies conflicted about cfDNA?
Prenatal cfDNA screening, often called NIPT, has given rise to many differences of opinion among professional societies. Recommendations about using cfDNA for prenatal screening have evolved slowly as studies have validated these tests – and, of course, as the tests themselves have changed and expanded over time. ACMG, representing medical genetics and laboratories, has tended to make the most expansive recommendations in favor of cfDNA screening, while ACOG, representing the bulk of obstetricians, has tended to be the most conservative group. Others, like ISPD, have usually fallen between the two extremes.
Commercial cfDNA labs, for their part, have grumbled about what they see as an overly slow pace of accepting this new technology (although, by historical medical standards, it’s actually been quite fast). One of their long-standing complaints has been revived in a just-published commentary in Prenatal Diagnosis. Adam Wolfberg, formerly employed by Ariosa (the makers of the Harmony™ cfDNA screen), argues in this new commentary that professional bodies have an inherent conflict of interest that has led them to resist more enthusiastic recommendation for prenatal cfDNA screening. Maternal-fetal medicine (MFM) specialists, he argues, see their livelihood endangered by this new technology, which threatens to undermine the fetal ultrasounds that are their bread and butter. Continue reading Are professional societies conflicted about cfDNA?
ISPD issues new guidelines for prenatal genome-wide sequencing
Genome-wide sequencing is increasingly being conducted on fetal tissues, either as whole exome sequencing (WES), whole genome sequencing (WGS), or targeted analysis that uses clinical panels. These kinds of prenatal sequencing are sometimes done when more standard genetic tests have not yielded helpful results to explain structural anomalies, or if a specific genetic condition is suspected that would not be detected through other prenatal tests. While such sequencing is more likely to yield a positive result, it comes with its own set of risks and challenges – for instance, it is more likely to detect variants of unknown significance and other results that lead to excessive testing and stress on parents without significant benefit.
The International Society of Prenatal Diagnosis (ISPD), in conjunction with the Society of Maternal Fetal Medicine (SMFM) and the Perinatal Quality Foundation (PQF), just issued a joint position statement on the use of genome-wide sequencing for fetal diagnosis. While they recognize that sequencing can be useful in some instances, they generally take a cautionary approach. Based on “lessons learned from existing prenatal testing,” along with currently available literature and a panel discussion at the most recent annual ISPD meetings, their consensus opinion includes the following points. Continue reading ISPD issues new guidelines for prenatal genome-wide sequencing
Prenatal Information Research Consortium 