Prospective parents have been using the procedure, known as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, for more than a decade to screen for genes certain to cause childhood diseases that are severe and largely untreatable.

Now a growing number of couples like the Kingsburys are crossing a new threshold for parental intervention in the genetic makeup of their offspring: They are using pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to detect a predisposition to cancers that may develop during the later part of life.

For most parents who have used pre- implantation diagnosis, the burden of the decision has been trumped by the near certainty that diseases like cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia will afflict the children who carry the genetic mutation that causes them. The procedure has also been used to avoid passing on Huntington's disease, a severe neurological disease that spares no one who carries the mutation that causes it.


Posted by: Andria    Source

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