Prenatal Diagnosis of β-Thalassemia by the Analysis of Trophoblast DNA with the Synthetic Oligomer Technique

Trophoblast DNA has been recently used for the antenatal diagnosis of inherited hemoglobinopathies (Williamson et al. 1981; Old et al. 1982; Goossens et al. 1983). The main advantage of this method is that chorionic villi may be obtained at an early stage of gestation, which may make prenatal diagnosis a more acceptable procedure for an increasing number of couples at risk.