FAQ

There is no age restriction for testing at HUMEDIT NIPT.

• Anyone who is 10 weeks pregnant or later may take the test, but it is recommended that the test be taken on your 14th week if you plan to take an amniotic fluid test in case your result turns.
• Pregnant women with twins are also eligible for this test.
  Please consult with us if you have Vanishing Twin Syndrome.

However, the testing may not be accurate in the following cases:

• If you yourself have trisomy, monosomy, etc.
• If the mother has a genetic abnormality
• If your fetus has triploidy or tetraploidy
• Those who have undergone stem cell therapy
• Those who have undergone immunotherapy
• Those who have received an organ transplant
• Those who have had a blood transfusion in the past 12 months

In NIPT testing, we only need 10ml of the pregnant mothers' blood and send it to our Tokyo Japan Testing Center. Therefore our Staff Guide can assist you in going to Laboratory clinics that will assist in extracting blood.

It will depend on the Staff Guide suggestion and the laboratory that will extract the 10ml blood. It could range an average of one (1) hour in total. Please allocate enough time for your visit and coordinate with Call Center Staff for the schedule.

Our testing laboratory is located in 1F 1-16-4 Maenocho, Itabashi-ku, Tokyo, Japan 174-0063

Yes, it is possible to do a remote consultation on the received results.

The specimens will be sent from the Philippines to Tokyo, Japan via FedEx where they will be processed.

The test results, and confirmation email you will get after completing the medical questionnaire will be sent from the domain 'nipt-ph@humedit.com'.
If you have set your iPhone, smart phone, or cell phone to reject e-mails from this domain, you will not be able to receive e-mails
from 'nipt-ph@humedit.com'. Please make sure to set your e-mail address to be able to receive e-mails from 'nipt-ph@humedit.com'.

Minimum Plan (O) is the same as that of a university hospitals and only tests for chromosomes 13, 18, and 21.
Light Plan (A) tests chromosomes 13, 18, and 21 and identify the number of sex chromosomes.
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The most common abnormal findings observed in testing the number of sex chromosomes are Klinefelter's syndrome (XXY, XXXY, XY/XXY), Turner's syndrome (X), and Superwoman's syndrome (XXX).
The reason why university hospitals do not perform this gender test is because they discourage gender preselection and because gender chromosome abnormalities have relatively mild symptoms.
More information on the relatively frequently occurring chromosomal abnormality is explained here.

We request that you discontinue taking this medication as it may affect the test.
When taken TWICE a day - For night and morning doses, take the night before and stop taking the morning of the day.
When taken ONCE a day - Please discontinue taking it at night or in the morning.

Use of low-molecular-weight heparin is known to alter DNA in the serum, resulting in a high frequency of errors when using heparin injections.
The estimated half-life of heparin is 4~6 hours, so it is advisable to stop using heparin for more than 48 hours ( at least 12 hours) before blood is drawn for NIPT if possible, or before starting to use it.

No, test plan will be decided during the confirmation of appointment date.

HUMEDIT NIPT can also test for twins.

The test can be performed starting at 10 weeks of pregnancy.
However, false positives, false negatives, and gender inconsistencies are more likely to occur than usual.

You will need to prepare a mother-child handbook with the number of weeks and an ultrasound photograph.

Blood collection will not be affected.

There is none.

All appointments shall be deemed confirmed once the Patient deposited the payment thru the bank details we provided. A refund requested by the Patient after payment confirmation shall be declined.

In the event that the Patient cannot appear or proceed on her selected appointment date, she will need to inform HUMEDIT NIPT Call Center Team 2 days before the appointment date and select a new one.

If you have difficulty coming to the clinic due to illness or other reasons, make sure to call us.
Please note that a cancellation fee will be charged for same-day no-shows.

It is not detectable by the Veriseq NIPT V2 system at the Second Tokyo Clinical Laboratory.

Triploids and tetraploids are explained in the NIPT Columns.

7 million bases is the size of the gene that serves as a standard for discriminating whole autosomal whole region partial deletion/duplication diseases.

In HUMEDIT NIPT, an abnormality in which a part of a chromosome is duplicated or missing is detected based on 7 million bases as a whole autosomal whole region partial deletion or duplication disease.
It is not an abnormality in the number of chromosomes like monosomy or trisomy.

The possibilities are not zero.
Anything smaller than 7 million bases is likely to be detected.

Sensitivity is one of the criteria for measuring the accuracy of a test.

In NIPT, Sensitivity is the probability that the test is positive among those who had a positive result after delivery. The higher this number is, the higher the accuracy.

Specificity is one of the criteria used to measure the accuracy of a test.

Specificity is the probability of a negative test result among those who tested negative after delivery. The higher this number is, the higher the accuracy.
Both sensitivity and specificity are values that indicate the accuracy of a test and are characteristic values of the test.
This value is determined by the testing system. Therefore, it is not measured by HUMEDIT, but by Illumina, the company that developed the system.

In NIPT studies around the world, it is known that genetic disorders have ethnic and regional origins.
However, despite the availability of various research data, mainly from Europe and the U.S. but also from Asia, there have been no reports of genetic disease data limited to pregnant women in Japan.
This is also the first data reported for all autosomal whole region partial deletions and duplications diseases.

In HUMEDIT NIPT, about 1 in 270 of the positive patients tested positive for all autosomal whole region partial deletion diseases.
This calculation is based on data from more than 10,000 pregnant women examined by our clinic.

There are two alternating regions in a gene: the exon region, which carries genetic information, and the intron region, which does not.
Inborn information inherited from parent to child is mainly contained in the exon region.

Depending on the chromosome site, some parts of the chromosome may not have any genes present. However, it is unlikely that there are no exon regions at all within 7 million bases. Exon regions are usually present in about 2% of the chromosomes.

It is thought to depend on the amount of genes.
We believe that with a duplication of approximately 7 million bases, the number of cases of fetal death is low.
On a side note, there are 48.12 million bases of chromosome 21 involved in Down's syndrome.
It is considered that the severity of symptoms is generally more severe for deletions than for duplications, and depends on the amount of increase or decrease in the base changed.

The type of disability is determined by the site and extent of the disorder.
We provide the extent of the disorder area in the results report so that we can find out as much as we can about it.
However, we can only speculate from what has been so far reported.

When counseling a patient who is positive, we will examine the type of gene present at the site of the disorder and previous cases in advance, and speculate on possible symptoms.

Although there are varying degrees of success, many cases of survival have been reported, so it is considered possible.

It is said to be related to changes in the amount of genes and the extent of the disorder.
The increase or decrease will occur in one part of the chromosome rather than the entire chromosome. It is possible that the symptoms may be milder than in a normal trisomy.

As far as we have been able to determine, 54 named diseases or syndromes have been reported worldwide, ranging from chromosomes 1 to 22.
Symptoms range from relatively mild to severe.
Chromosomes from chromosome 1 to 22 vary in size from 250 million bases for the most common to 48 million bases for the least common, and the number of genes varies from 2,610 for the most common to 337 for the least common.

There are also unnamed diseases that are not included in the 54 types, and it is reasonable to assume that there are still others that have not been discovered.

There are also unnamed cases reported in NIPT studies around the world that are not included in the 49 type of cases published on the HUMEDIT Clinic NIPT website.

The Second Tokyo Clinical Laboratory, which is the testing our laboratory, uses testing equipment that measures all autosomal regions, so it is possible to detect all autosomal partial deletion diseases.
However, there are still some diseases and cases that cannot be detected even with the testing equipment of Second Tokyo Clinical Laboratory. It is important to be aware that these cases are not small in number.

First, you should do an amniotic fluid test and then perform a microarray test. The usual G-band (G staining method) may not be able to detect the disease.

It takes about one hour from orientation to consultation, including blood collection.

The earlier the better, taking into account amniotic fluid testing and other factors. There is no limit to the number of weeks before the test.

However, in rare cases, blood samples may need to be re-collected due to insufficient DNA. If you are really worried about it, you can take the test from the 11th week.

This is due to recommendations in Japan by the Japanese Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
In general, it is scientifically accepted that it is better for older pregnant women to take this test. This is because even if the sensitivity and specificity are close to 99%, the positive predictive value of the test is lower in cases with a low incidence.

If a test has a sensitivity of 96.5% and a specificity of 99%, but the incidence of disease is 0.1%, only one in two people will get the test correct, even if the test is positive. The positive predictive rate drops even further when the disease incidence rate is even lower, and the Society does not like the idea of NIPT testing for everyone because of the anxiety-provoking consequences (positive NIPT results).

However, the above discussion is probabilistic and statistical. HUMEDIT NIPT allows testing without age limit for those who wish to be tested.
At HUMEDIT NIPT, we believe that it is acceptable to leave it up to the patient's decision as to whether or not to test.

There are some positive cases among those under 35 years of age.

At HUMEDIT NIPT, you can take the test as long as the baby is still in your womb.
It is not a definitive test, as only blood samples are taken.

HUMEDIT NIPT cannot provide answers about abortion, but abortion procedures are considered to be performed up to 21 weeks and 6 days.

The basic test (A: Light Plan) includes gender identification and is included in the test results. No additional fee is required.
Please be aware that this will be indicated on the test result report. The (O: Minimum Plan) does not include gender identification.

The autosomes (chromosomes 1~22) are numbered in order of chromosome length. However, the number of genes on each chromosome is lower for 21, 18, and 13, in that order. This is why these three types of trisomies are thought to occur more frequently.

The NIPT used at HUMEDIT NIPT is highly accurate, but it is not definitive.
It is a screening test (not definitive).

We believe so. Basically, testing is done based on the percentage of risk from the test and the information obtained from the test.

The NIPT test is an absolutely low-risk test, requiring only a blood sample from the mother. We believe that the information obtained from this test will provide important information for childbirth.
Both sensitivity and specificity are close to 99%, and we believe that this test is sufficient as a screening test.

10 ml.

Yes, we issue test results in English or Japanese.

You can pay via bank transfer.

We only issue acknowledgement receipt.

The results will be sent to you via e-mail.

Results are usually available 10 days after the blood sample is taken, and the test result report will be received via e-mail provided.

Test results are usually returned within 10 working days (usually within 3-6 days for some branches and partner facilities) after the blood sample is taken.
Express delivery option is available at all HUMEDIT NIPT clinics except the partner facilities (delivery within 2~3 days after blood collection).

If the laboratory determines that the case is subject to re-inspection, it may delay the release of the results by up to 3 days.
※When results are reported online

We recommend that you take an amniotic fluid test, depending on what you are considering.