The First Trimester Combined Screening Test in the Indian Population: Insights from a Cohort of 27,647 Pregnancies

Abstract

Objective To analyse the distribution and determinants of the first trimester screening risk for the detection of trisomy 21 in the population in and around Chennai, a south Indian metropolitan city.

Methods A cross-sectional analysis of 27,647 singleton pregnancies that underwent the first trimester combined screening test (FTS) was carried out. For the screen positive cases, karyotype reports or postnatal phenotype outcome were available. The distribution of the various components of risk assessment in the screen positive cases and screen negative cases formed the main outcome measures.

Results Of the 27,647 cases, 4.6% (1270) of cases had unossified nasal bone; 1.8% (499/27,647) had risk more than 1:250 (screen positive). Fifteen (3.2%) of the screen positive cases had confirmed Down syndrome while 46 had termination of pregnancy and 8 had fetal loss.

Conclusions With the current screening protocol, the screen positive rate and the odds of being affected given a positive result (OAPR) for a threshold of 1:250 are 1.8% and 1 in 25 respectively.

Keywords

Trisomy 21 - Down syndrome screening - India - First trimester combined screening test - Nuchal translucency - Prenatal screening

Publication History

Received: 29 November 2016

Accepted: 29 June 2017

Article published online:
08 May 2023