Health Council of Netherlands recommendation 'Serum screening for risk assessment of Down syndrome for all women' poorly supported
Hamerlynck, J.V.; Knuist, M.
Nederlands Tijdschrift Voor Geneeskunde 145(42): 2014-2017
2001
ISSN/ISBN: 0028-2162 PMID: 11695097 Document Number: 537774
The Health Council of the Netherlands has recommended a new policy of offering triple test-based serum screening for Down's syndrome to all pregnant women rather than the current policy of maternal age-based screening for pregnant women aged 36 years and above. In these older pregnant women, this risk-assessment serum screening would indeed prevent many miscarriages caused by the invasive procedure. However, in pregnant women under 30 years of age this policy would imply the need to counsel almost 80,000 young pregnant women each year, and the need to perform 2,200 invasive procedures in order to detect 29 Down's syndrome cases, while 45 cases would still remain undetected. Moreover, as only 11% of the detectable Down's syndrome cases are found in women under 30, it would appear advisable to only offer the risk-assessment serum screening to pregnant women aged 30 years and above.