Risk evaluation in a small series of transabdominal chorionic villus sampling.

Previous reports have suggested that the fetal loss rate with transcervical chorionic villus sampling was high in the initial 100-300 procedures performed. In a consecutive series of 155 patients with first-trimester transabdominal chorionic villus sampling (CVS), we observed a total fetal loss rate of 8.4%, and loss rate not attributable to induced abortion or cytogenetic abnormality of 3.2%. Our results demonstrate that transabdominal CVS in the first trimester of pregnancy is a safe method of prenatal diagnosis.