Evaluation of human chorionic gonadotropin beta-subunit mRNA concentrations in maternal serum in aneuploid pregnancies: a feasibility study.

Fully automated immunoassay formats are available for quantification of urinary albumin in large numbers of samples. However, most of these methods are impractical or expensive. The criteria for point-of-care testing include affordable cost, a disposable device, and minimum main-tenance/technical expertise required to perform tests (15). The sample should be applied directly to the device, which should require only a small sample volume, and the assays should have a rapid turnaround time with good accuracy. There are some point-of-care devices for determination of MAU in urine, such as the ImmunoDip (Diagnostic Chemicals Limited) and Micral Urine Test Strip (Roche Diagnostics). Despite their many advantages, one drawback of these commercial test devices is that they give only negative, threshold, or positive results without displaying quantitative values for urinary albumin. Given the different principles of the assays compared, the results obtained with the fluorescence ICA agree well with the results obtained with the independent RIA. Considering the detection limit, imprecision, linearity, and working range, the fluorescent ICA is comparable to other, well-known immunoassays and appears to be suitable for determination of urinary albumin. Validation of the DCA 2000 microalbumin:creatinine ratio urinanalyzer for its use in pregnancy and preeclampsia. borderline-increased albumin excretion determined with a centrifugal ana-lyzer and the Albumin Blue 580 fluorescence assay. A rapid, quantitative whole blood immunochromatographic platform for point-of-care testing. The recent demonstration of detectable circulating fetal RNA in maternal plasma (1, 2) has led to the development of new, noninvasive prenatal diagnostic opportunities (3, 4). Unlike fetal DNA measurements in maternal plas-ma/serum, quantitative analysis of circulating fetal RNA has the advantage of being applicable to all pregnant women irrespective of fetal gender and genetic polymor-phism status. In addition, the unexpected stability of circulating RNA has enhanced the practicality of this approach (2, 5, 6). Previously, we developed a real-time quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) assay for measuring the concentration of human chorionic go-nadotropin ␤-subunit (␤hCG) mRNA in plasma samples from healthy pregnant women (2). We conducted a case– control study to investigate whether abnormal concentrations of ␤hCG mRNA might be detectable in the serum of mothers carrying fetuses with trisomy 21 and trisomy 18. We sought informed consent from pregnant women who presented for aneuploidy screening at the King's College Hospital London in the United Kingdom between January and August 2003. Ethics approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board. Among women who underwent chorionic villous sampling for fetal karyotyp-ing …