title: Maternal serum screening for Down's syndrome, open neural tube defects and trisomy 18.
abstract: Maternal serum screening identifies women at an increased risk of a pregnancy with Down's syndrome or trisomy 18 or an open neural tube defect. The triple test, consisting of maternal serum alpha-fetoprotein, unconjugated estriol and human chorionic gonadotropin was carried out by a chemiluminescence immunoassay method in our laboratory. The study consisted of 373 pregnant women. The gestational range for the study group was 14-22 weeks. The mean maternal age for the study group was 28.53 +/- 5.46 years (range 17.4 to 43.5 years); 9.1% of the women were considered at high risk for Down's syndrome based on the test results. In our study the detection rate for Down's syndrome by prenatal karyotyping was 66.6%. Maternal serum screening allows reduction of the number of women requiring amniocentesis without a significant decrease in the detection rate.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, Akdeniz University, Faculty of Medicine, Antalya, Turkey.
authors.forename: S H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Akbas
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ozben
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Alper
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ugur
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Yücel
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lüleci
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000649:Amniocentesis; D006063:Chorionic Gonadotropin / Q000097:blood; D002887:Chromosomes, Human, Pair 18; D004314:Down Syndrome / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics; D004964:Estriol / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D005865:Gestational Age; D006801:Humans; D007118:Immunoassay / Q000379:methods; D007621:Karyotyping; D008163:Luminescent Measurements; D008423:Maternal Age; D009436:Neural Tube Defects / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011247:Pregnancy; D011296:Prenatal Diagnosis / Q000379:methods*; D012307:Risk Factors; D014314:Trisomy; D000509:alpha-Fetoproteins / Q000032:analysis
chemical_list: D006063:Chorionic Gonadotropin; D000509:alpha-Fetoproteins; D004964:Estriol