Amniocentesis Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Amniocentesis, including details on pregnancy, prenatal screening, diagnosis, risks, down syndrome.

Nuchal translucency screening: how do women actually utilize the results?

Caughey AB, Musci TJ, Belluomini J, Main D, Otto C, Goldberg J

Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA. abcmd@berkeley.edu

OBJECTIVE: To examine how women use the nuchal translucency (NT) risk adjustment in decision-making for invasive prenatal diagnosis. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study of 1083 consecutive NT screening exams. A screen-positive test was defined as a risk > or = 1/300. Primary outcome was what proportion of screen-positive or screen-negative women chose to undergo chorionic villus sampling or amniocentesis. RESULTS: Of the women tested, 79% (858/1083) were > or = 35-years-old and 88% (756/858) of these women had a decrease in age-related risk after NT. Of the screen-negative women, 31% (238/756) > or = 35 years of age chose to have invasive testing as compared to only 11.2% (25/223) of those < 35 years of age (p < 0.001). Of the screen-positive women, 71% (72/102) > or = 35 years of age and 100% (2/2) < 35 years of age chose to obtain invasive testing (p = 0.368). CONCLUSION: First-trimester NT screening for Down syndrome (DS) enables a significant number of women over age 35 to lower the risk for DS several fold and avoid the risks of invasive testing. However, despite significant reductions in age-specific mid-trimester DS risks, a relatively high proportion of women > or = 35 years of age still opted for invasive testing.

Published 7 February 2007 in Prenat Diagn, 27(2): 119-23.
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