[Prenatal risk index for fetal Down's syndrome with serum markers. Comment on the contribution by R. Benz, U. Müller, M. Krahner-Pilat, S. Wagner-Geuder, R. Terinde: Serum screening for Down's syndrome in women less than 35 years of age with an age-independent index].
5 years ago, maternal serum markers have been established for individual risk estimation of fetal Down syndrome. Recently Benz et al. presented an arbitrary age-independent risk index. Compared to the commonly applied statistical approach a 20% increase in detection rate was obtained by using the index (85% versus 65%). We recalculated data from 19,333 prospectively investigated pregnancies without trisomy 21 and 57 pregnancies with fetal Down syndrome using the proposed risk index. At the corresponding false-positive rate (7.9%) the age-independent detection rate was only 56%. This result indicates that the sensitivity cannot be increased by the Ulm index, when compared to statistical methods of risk estimation.
Bartels
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I
Institut für Humangenetik, Universität Göttingen.
Sancken
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U
D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood; D006063:Chorionic Gonadotropin / Q000097:blood; D004314:Down Syndrome / Q000097:blood / Q000517:prevention & control*; D004964:Estriol / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008423:Maternal Age; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011247:Pregnancy; D011296:Prenatal Diagnosis; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D000509:alpha-Fetoproteins / Q000378:metabolism
D015415:Biomarkers; D006063:Chorionic Gonadotropin; D000509:alpha-Fetoproteins; D004964:Estriol