The Implications of Non-Invasive Testing

In the findings on noninvasive bladder sensory test, there is an interesting trend in noninvasive testing in the field of obstetrics and gynecology. Visceral pain conditions, like interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome, plague about fifteen to twenty percent of women today. With no effective treatment to bladder pain syndrome, preventive measures become key to treating disease before it manifests into a larger issue. New research shows that noninvasive, three dimensional ultrasound testing connects dysmenorrhea, noxious mechanosensitivity, and bladder volumes to impact the way physicians test in clinical settings. For women, this new non-invasive testings option provides an excellent prevention measure for bladder pain, pelvic pain, and dysmenorrhea.

Similarly, there is a push for noninvasive testing in cardiology, orthopedics, and obstetrics (to name a few). Another significant and devastating diseases for women lies with the risk of aneuploidy during pregnancy. Aneuploidy describes a missing or extra chromosome; one common example is an extra chromosome at chromosome 21 resulting in Down syndrome. In the past three decades, the shift to prenatal testing has been able to improve early diagnosis of Down syndrome by 90%. The assessment of non-invasive testing from a obstetric point of view analyzed the prenatal techniques, costs, counseling and ethical issues. Most interesting, non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) was plainly stated as costly; however, the high-risk pregnancies have benefits that outweigh the costs for the well being of mother and baby. Unlike non-invasive gynecological testings, NIPT incorporates ethical decisions in this type of testings because many parents want the perfect pregnancy, the perfect delivery, and the perfect baby. In reality, prenatal testings can reveal genetic abnormalities in the child or children. This leads to parents making early decisions to deliver the baby or terminate the fetus. Although NIPT provides more extensive medical information, this early information can lead to ethical and moral decisions.

By looking at different spectrum of women’s medical concerns, there is a definite prevalence in non-invasive testing measures. Non-invasive testings has become a critical and innovative aspect to modern healthcare. New medical discoveries provide patients with more efficient ways to reveal information about the current state of their health. Gynecology non-invasive testing in comparison to NIPT displays one major distinction; non-invasive prenatal testing consequently involves an ethical component to healthcare. The continuance of new, non-invasive testings and research suggests that biomedical ethics will have to be side by side in future healthcare developments.

Benn, P., Cuckle, H., & Pergament, E. (2013). Non‐invasive prenatal testing for aneuploidy: current status and future prospects. Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology, 42(1), 15-33.

Tu, F. F., Epstein, A. E., Pozolo, K. E., Sexton, D. L., Melnyk, A. I., & Hellman, K. M. (2013). A noninvasive bladder sensory test supports a role for dysmenorrhea increasing bladder noxious mechanosensitivity. The Clinical journal of pain, 29(10), 883-890.