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| gettyimagesbank |
By Ko Dong-hwan
Eone Diagnomics Genome Center (EDGC) has sold its prenatal DNA testing service to a hospital in Pakistan, raising hopes there that more pregnant women will be able to receive information on fetal health more conveniently.
The genetic sequencing company based in Incheon's Songdo said May 14 that the technologies and systemic foundations used in the service ― called NICE ― will be provided to Surgimed Hospital in Lahore, the capital of Punjab Province. The hospital, according to EDGC, is one of the country's most advanced; it is at the forefront of studying and treating not only COVID-19 during the ongoing pandemic, but also HIV, human leukocyte antigen and inherited diseases.
NICE, which stands for "non-invasive chromosome examination," enables medical professionals to examine the health conditions of a fetus via a blood sample from the mother. It is a method more convenient and less painful for pregnant women than the traditional procedure that extracts amniotic fluid from the womb by injecting a needle inside. NICE, according to EDGC, has zero risks of miscarriage or rupture of the amniotic sac.
Hospitals using NICE can send especially designed tubes containing the blood samples to EDGC's genetic laboratory in Korea, where they will be analyzed. EDGC then examines the cell-free DNA contained in the samples to check if the fetus' chromosomes have any signs of abnormalities. The laboratory then sends the examination results back to the hospital where the samples came from, and physicians inform the service users of the results.
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| A launching event for EDGC's NICE service in Bangkok in 2018 / Courtesy of the EDGC |
The accuracy of NICE technology to examine the fetus via the mother's blood, according to EDGC, is 99.9 percent, whereas the accuracy of the traditional method, using amniotic fluid from the mother's womb falls between 67 and 96 percent.
Marriages between cousins are frequent in Pakistan, which increases the risks of babies being born with genetic defects, according to EDGC. Eighty out of every 1,000 babies in the country are born with Down's syndrome ― meaning they are born with an additional full or partial copy of chromosome 21, causing physical and mental development delays and disabilities.
"We chose NICE to maintain the health of Pakistan's pregnant women and their babies, thanks to its 99.9 percent accuracy rate in detecting chromosomic abnormalities," said Muhammad Saqib Shahzad, a molecular geneticist from Surgimed Hospital. "NICE clears away the blind spots of the type of prenatal fetus examination that we have been using so far, helping our country brim with the vibrant energy of life."
NICE has already started booming in Southeast Asian countries, where the service's sales revenue has jumped by 500 percent and there are almost 12.85 million births each year, according to EDGC.
