High-resolution chromosomal microarrays in prenatal diagnosis significantly increase diagnostic power

The objective of this study was to determine for the first time the reliability and the diagnostic power of high-resolution microarray testing in routine prenatal diagnostics.

We applied high-resolution chromosomal microarray testing in 464 cytogenetically normal prenatal samples with any indication for invasive testing.

High-resolution testing revealed a diagnostic yield of 6.9% and 1.6% in cases of fetal ultrasound anomalies and cases of advanced maternal age (AMA), respectively, which is similar to previous studies using low-resolution microarrays. In three (0.6%) additional cases with an indication of AMA, an aberration in susceptibility risk loci was detected. Moreover, one case (0.2%) showed an X-linked aberration in a female fetus, a finding relevant for future family planning. We found the rate of cases, in which the parents had to be tested for interpretation of unreported copy number variants (3.7%), and the rate of remaining variants of unknown significance (0.4%) acceptably low. Of note, these findings did not cause termination of pregnancy after expert genetic counseling. The 0.4% rate of confined placental mosaicism was similar to that observed by conventional karyotyping and notably involved a case of placental microdeletion.

High-resolution prenatal microarray testing is a reliable technique that increases diagnostic yield by at least 17.3% when compared with conventional karyotyping, without an increase in the frequency of variants of uncertain significance.