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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A team of American and Danish researchers has created a cheap blood test that predicts early births by 80 percent, according to a study published Friday by Science. The new screening may reduce the number of premature death deaths estimated at 15 million per year.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - US and Danish researchers have developed a cheap blood test that can predict 80 percent whether a pregnant woman will give birth prematurely, a study showed Friday.
Experts confirmed that the innovative test could reduce the number of deaths from the complications of premature births in the world of 15 million annually, although more research is needed before it is widely used.
The test could also be used to estimate the expected birth time "as reliably as ultrasound, but at a lower cost," according to a report in Science.
The test measures the activity of the mother's genes in the placenta as well as in the embryo, and estimates the levels of ribosome DNA without cells, which are molecular transmitters that transmit the body's genetic instructions.
"We have noticed that a handful of genes have a high predictive capacity for women who are at risk of early childbearing," said Stanford University Visiting Professor and Director-General of the Staten Serum Institute in Copenhagen Madas Melbay, one of the two main authors of the study.
"I have spent a lot of time over the years working to understand early childbearing cases," he said. "This is the first real scientific breakthrough in this problem for a long time."
Stephen Quake, a professor of biomedical engineering and applied physics at Stanford University and former director of a team that created a blood test for Down's syndrome in 2008, is currently involved in the research. Currently, at least three million pregnant women use it every year.
"Preterm children"
Births of "preterm" children, those born at least three weeks before the scheduled date, account for about 9 percent of all births in the United States, and are the leading cause of death in children under the age of five.
A number of pre-eclampsia tests are usually conducted for women who have a high risk of such cases, and their accuracy was only 20 percent, according to the same report.
The researchers analyzed blood samples from 31 Danish women to prepare the test and identify genes that give reliable indications of the expected pregnancy and the risk of early reproduction.
The researchers say that when this test is introduced in the market, it will probably be easy to use and cheaply to use in poor areas around the world.

source

Researchers are devising a "low cost" blood test that allows for early birth

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A team of American and Danish researchers has created a cheap blood test that predicts early births by 80 percent, according to a study published Friday by Science. The new screening may reduce the number of premature death deaths estimated at 15 million per year.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - US and Danish researchers have developed a cheap blood test that can predict 80 percent whether a pregnant woman will give birth prematurely, a study showed Friday.
Experts confirmed that the innovative test could reduce the number of deaths from the complications of premature births in the world of 15 million annually, although more research is needed before it is widely used.
The test could also be used to estimate the expected birth time "as reliably as ultrasound, but at a lower cost," according to a report in Science.
The test measures the activity of the mother's genes in the placenta as well as in the embryo, and estimates the levels of ribosome DNA without cells, which are molecular transmitters that transmit the body's genetic instructions.
"We have noticed that a handful of genes have a high predictive capacity for women who are at risk of early childbearing," said Stanford University Visiting Professor and Director-General of the Staten Serum Institute in Copenhagen Madas Melbay, one of the two main authors of the study.
"I have spent a lot of time over the years working to understand early childbearing cases," he said. "This is the first real scientific breakthrough in this problem for a long time."
Stephen Quake, a professor of biomedical engineering and applied physics at Stanford University and former director of a team that created a blood test for Down's syndrome in 2008, is currently involved in the research. Currently, at least three million pregnant women use it every year.
"Preterm children"
Births of "preterm" children, those born at least three weeks before the scheduled date, account for about 9 percent of all births in the United States, and are the leading cause of death in children under the age of five.
A number of pre-eclampsia tests are usually conducted for women who have a high risk of such cases, and their accuracy was only 20 percent, according to the same report.
The researchers analyzed blood samples from 31 Danish women to prepare the test and identify genes that give reliable indications of the expected pregnancy and the risk of early reproduction.
The researchers say that when this test is introduced in the market, it will probably be easy to use and cheaply to use in poor areas around the world.

source

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