This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on ISI (10)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor.—Each year, an estimated 1000 individuals are born with cystic fibrosis (CF) in the United States; average lifetime costs are at least $800000. Prenatal screening for CF has been studied in several pilot programs in Europe and the United States.^1-5 A National Institutes of Health (NIH) expert review panel recently issued recommendations about genetic testing for CF and concluded that such testing should be offered, but should be limited to couples either planning pregnancy or seeking prenatal testing.⁶ It identified a variety of racial and ethnic groups as being eligible for such testing and called for research into "the cost-effective approaches to treatment and screening in different settings."⁶ This recommendation deserves consideration, because 2 features of CF (birth prevalence and frequency of specific mutations) differ widely among racial groups.

Table 1 demonstrates the extent to which these differences influence the cost-effectiveness of prenatal screening for CF. In . . . [Full Text of this Article]

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Report Card on Molecular Genetic Testing: Room for Improvement?
Grody and Pyeritz
JAMA 1999;281:845-847.
FULL TEXT