Safety of Placental Biopsy in the Second and Third Trimesters

To the Editor: As suggested recently, rapid karyotyping can be done in the second and third trimesters, after placental biopsy using the transabdominal¹ or transvaginal² route. The advantage of this new technique for karyotyping is its speed. Application of the direct-preparation technique developed by Simoni et al.³ for first-trimester chorionic villi can also allow results to be available on the same day the placental biopsy specimen is taken during the second or third trimester. The safety of the procedure, however, has still to be evaluated, because of the limited number of cases reported. We have performed transabdominal placental biopsies using. No extract is available for articles shorter than 400 words.