Hello all!
Got my Panorama back on Monday (only just over a week after going for the test: blood taken on Friday afternoon, received by US lab on Monday, report dated the following Sunday and then I got a call at 9.30am from the Birth Company letting me know all was good!) Found out the gender too (you can choose whether you want to or not: apparently even if you don't want to find out straight away, if you change your mind later they just reissue the resport with the gender included!)
Suzi Sorry to hear you've had an unlucky sample. Obviously talk to your clinic, but from what I have read (and I am NOT a medic or scientist!) it MAY be worth trying the Panorama if Harmony doesn't work. It's a funny one because overall the Panorama re-draw rate is actually HIGHER than for Harmony. However, one of the things Panorama is supposed to be good at is getting good results even when the "fetal fraction" is low (this is the % of the cell-free DNA floating around in your blood that came from your fetus rather than from you). If you look on the Panorama Test website (particularly the bit for clinicians) you can find out more about it - and also on the Harmony test website (Ariosadx) there is a good presentation by Ken Song (?) in the bit for clinicians that explains why Harmony needs a good fetal fraction. Panorama is newer - so uses slightly newer technology that actually tries to net off the mother's DNA from the Baby's (rather than using counting methods). This is why it can do better at low fetal fractions (whereas Harmony needs enough fetal DNA that you can see the patterns through the "background noise" of Mum's DNA, as I understand it).
I think none of the tests will give you a result if your fetal fraction is below 4%, but whether they can give you a result above that depends on your particular sample and how clear the patterns are. Most people have 10%+ fetal fraction (and sometimes up to 40%!) so they are fine. Mine was only 4.8% and I still got a result from Harmony. Harmony also takes a cheek swab from the father, which apparently can help them give you a result in some cases that would otherwise be borderline.
I wondered if my fetal fraction is lower because of my weight. Apparently the heavier you are the more of the DNA will be yours rather than the fetus's (kind of makes sense - to do with relative size of Mum and fetus and at 10 weeks all fetuses are about the same size!) - so you get a lower fetal fraction. I am 5'11 and over 70kgs, and 70kgs seems to be about the weight at which the fetal fraction starts falling (on average). It isn't a health issue - just a relative size issue - so anything above that will slightly increase the chance that they don't get enough fetal DNA. There is more about this in the Ken Song video in the Providers section of the Harmony website too.
However, the fact Panorama is newer also means it's less tested (so if you look at the studies available for the two tests, the sample sizes are much smaller for Panorama so far, whereas Harmony has been around longer so we know more about its success rate).
So it's a bit of a trade-off - they are both good tests, but it may be worth talking to FMC about Panorama if the second Harmony doesn't work, as they are doing slightly different things!