Dr. Misbah Hanif, a geneticist, has said that one out of every 2,000 people worldwide is suffering from a genetic disorder. High rate of intermarriage and limited provision of genetic services in Pakistan pose a major challenge to genetic counselling, lack of trained personnel, limited availability of genetic testing hinders counseling.
A session titled ‘Role of Genetic Counselor in Antenatal’ was organized by Professional Development Center at Dow Medical College.
On this occasion, a large number of students including the Vice Chancellor Professor Dr. Nazli Hussain, Associate Professor Dr. Sophia Butt, doctors, house officers were present.
He described the importance of genetic diagnosis in antenatal clinics, saying that it provides accurate diagnosis, identification of pre-symptomatic individuals in affected families, reproductive options to couples with concerns about genetic diseases.
He said that various genetic tests such as diagnostic, predictive and carrier tests are done in this regard.
He also said that genetic counseling is done in different departments, prenatal, pediatric, adult and cancer genetic counseling. Prenatal genetic counseling is done before and after pregnancy based on certain symptoms, such as multiple misses. Preconception counseling should be done in case of pregnancies, hereditary diseases, previous abnormal pregnancy, advanced age of parents, while postconception counseling is required in case of abnormal prenatal screening results.
He said that the age of the mother can also cause genetic diseases in the child, one in 1,500 children of mothers aged 20 to 29, one in 800 of mothers over 30, and one in 800 children over 35. One in 270 children, one in 100 over 40s and one in 50 children over 45 are at risk of having a genetic disease.
Apart from this, Dr. Misbah also talked about Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT), genetic testing tools and other screening tests.
At the same time, he said, leave the decision to the patient after genetic counseling.
He said that genetic disease is found in one in every 2000 people worldwide, which has a significant impact on the affected families. High rate of intermarriage and limited provision of genetic services in Pakistan pose a major challenge to genetic counselling, lack of trained personnel, limited availability of genetic testing hinders counseling.
He said that in this regard, Dow University is establishing a genetic clinic where these services will be provided free of cost to the patients.
