[DNA diagnostics on the way to general clinical care]

Methodological improvements in molecular genetics will provide inexpensive, efficient methods suitable for routine clinical diagnosis in a wide range of conditions. Assay sensitivity is greatly enhanced by pre-amplification of the target nucleic acid segment, enabling extremely scant tissue samples to be analysed and low grade infections to be detected. Reagent kits and instruments are becoming available for detecting specific nucleic acids, distinguishing variant sequences, and establishing copy number; and RNA analysis will furnish insights into a diversity of acute reactions. However, perhaps the most important benefit of DNA diagnostics will be to open up predictives perspectives in medicine.