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Nuchal translucency screening: how do women actually utilize the results?
Author(s) -
Caughey Aaron B.,
Musci Thomas J.,
Belluomini Jenny,
Main Denise,
Otto Carl,
Goldberg James
Publication year - 2007
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/pd.1617
Subject(s) - medicine , chorionic villus sampling , amniocentesis , obstetrics , advanced maternal age , nuchal translucency , gynecology , retrospective cohort study , pregnancy , first trimester , prenatal diagnosis , gestation , fetus , surgery , biology , genetics
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 ≥ 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 ≥ 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) ≥ 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) ≥ 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 ≥ 35 years of age still opted for invasive testing. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.