Why Do Our Doctors prefer the Harmony test?
Book the Harmony test for £360 with us.
Many NIPT tests are run outside the UK – this raises issues with GDPR from the outset, which you would not have with a test run in the UK.
The service for Roche’s Harmony test is processed in the UK by TDL Genetics, which is a medical laboratory, accredited with 100% compliance for UKAS ISO 15189
The Harmony test is fully CE marked.
Other NIPT tests use SNPs both for fetal trisomy and Fetal Fraction (FF); Harmony uses counting for fetal trisomy and SNPs for FF. Please read the Fetal Fraction leaflet from Ariosa.
The Harmony test has published its FF accuracy, as a commitment to the reduction of false positive/negative results.
The Harmony test has more published data than any other NIPT.
The Harmony test redraw rate is 3%. The redraw rate of any NIPT assay is an important measure of quality. A redraw rate that is too low may indicate suboptimal quality control, while a redraw rate that is too high may indicate that a test is overly complex or has too many technical failures.
Other NIPT tests offer a larger panel of microdeletions, but poor validation studies have been performed. The inclusion of microdeletions that are very rare increases the false positive rate and invasive testing rate.
The Harmony test’s positive predictive value (PPV) is the most accurate of all NIPT tests. The PPV of the test is directly dependent on the false positive rate and small differences in false positive rate can have a large impact on the PPV.
The Harmony result provides an independent risk score that takes maternal age, gestational age and fetal fraction into account.
The Harmony algorithms can identify contamination of PCR – which ensures that non-viable samples will not be used to provide a result.