Multiphasic Screening, A Contribution to the Methodology of Teratological Research

Abstract

Both “industrial” and “academic” teratologists agree that the extrapolation of the results of animal experimentation to human conditions is the principal problem in this field. Thus, every methodological contribution which would increase the efficiency of research and screening from this point of view must be welcomed. At present, the quasi-standardized methodology of current screening (applied frequently also in pathogenetic research) is focused mainly on late, pre and postnatal effects in the investigated endogenous or exogenous noxae. The evaluation of prenatal risk is based mainly on the presence (or absence) of obvious fetal anomalies and on data concerning resorption and fetal death. This is, obviously, a somewhat eclectic approach to the problem of prenatal wastage. This wastage is not to be characterized without taking into account also the pathological events beginning in or even limited to early developmental stages. On the other hand, a linkage between early and late teratological effects (achieved but partially and in relatively few studies) may furnish new evidence as to the phenogenesis of malformations and the possible role of regulative and regenerative phenomena in the outcome of initial injuries.