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Second‐trimester maternal serum inhibin‐A screening for fetal Down syndrome in Asian women
Author(s) -
Lam Yung Hang,
Tang Mary Hoi Yin
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
prenatal diagnosis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.956
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1097-0223
pISSN - 0197-3851
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-0223(199905)19:5<463::aid-pd574>3.0.co;2-q
Subject(s) - medicine , confidence interval , down syndrome , gestational age , population , fetus , gynecology , obstetrics , pregnancy , second trimester , alpha fetoprotein , endocrinology , biology , environmental health , psychiatry , hepatocellular carcinoma , genetics
Case–control studies in the Caucasian population showed that maternal serum inhibin‐A is elevated in Down syndrome pregnancies and may be a useful second‐trimester marker in addition to human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) and alpha‐fetoprotein (AFP). Data in the Asian population are lacking. We measured inhibin‐A levels in the stored maternal sera of 49 Down syndrome pregnancies and 341 controls with a commercially available assay and expressed them as the multiples of the median of the gestational week. The log means and standard deviations for case and control inhibin‐A MOMs were 0.209, 0.226, and 0.002 and 0.177, respectively. Median inhibin‐A MOM in Down syndrome cases was elevated to 1.62 (95 per cent confidence interval, 1.29–1.82). 36 per cent of Down syndrome cases were expected to be detected at a 5 per cent false‐positive rate. However, inhibin‐A MOMs were strongly correlated with hCG MOMs in the cases ( r =0.73, p< 0.001) and the controls ( r =0.56, p< 0.001). This will diminish the value of adding inhibin‐A to the existing hCG and AFP screening protocol. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.