Background introduction
Down syndrome is a genetic disease that is often screened before birth. If not diagnosed and treated in time, it will bring a huge burden to the child and family. Screening for Down syndrome mainly uses serum markers and ultrasound measurements in the blood of pregnant women to determine the risk of the disease. In the medical field, detection accuracy has always been one of the important indicators for evaluating the quality of a detection method. Therefore, assessing the accuracy of Down syndrome screening capabilities is of great significance to guide clinical diagnosis.
Accuracy of Down syndrome screening
Down syndrome screening is a non-invasive testing method that mainly detects two serum markers in the blood of pregnant women, namely free beta human chorionic gonadotropin (f-βhCG) and pregnancy-associated placenta A (PAPP-A), and Nuchal translucency measured by fetal ultrasound. Based on these indicators, the risk of fetal Down syndrome can be calculated. However, the accuracy of Down syndrome screening cannot be guaranteed to be 100% correct, and its misdiagnosis rate is also high.
Research shows that the accuracy of Down syndrome screening may be affected by some factors, such as the pregnant woman\’s weight, age, gestational age and other factors that may affect the accuracy of screening. In addition, Down syndrome screening results will be affected by factors such as testing methods and hospital equipment.
Comparison of accuracy between men and women
Comparative studies on the accuracy of Down\’s syndrome screening for men and women show that the accuracy of Down\’s syndrome screening for women is higher than that for men. This is because the incidence of Down syndrome in male fetuses is lower than that in females, so the misdiagnosis rate in males is relatively high during the screening process. At the same time, there are certain differences in age at childbirth, parity of pregnancy, etc. between men and women before receiving Down\’s syndrome screening. Therefore, there are certain limitations in comparing the accuracy of Down\’s syndrome screening between men and women.
What should you do if the Down syndrome screening result is abnormal?
For pregnant women with abnormal Down syndrome screening results, it is recommended that they go to the hospital for further examination and DNA diagnostic testing in a timely manner. Because in non-invasive screening, the Down syndrome screening results of different pregnant women will have different degrees of deviation, but the degree of deviation is related to some factors of the pregnant women. If a pregnant woman\’s Down\’s syndrome screening result is high, she needs to be diagnosed, to rule out misdiagnosis, and to take appropriate medical measures in a timely manner to avoid the disease affecting her children and family in the future.
Conclusion
Overall, Down syndrome screening is an important non-invasive examination, but its results cannot fully guarantee accuracy. Screening accuracy is slightly higher for women than for men, but the sensitivity of screening results is different between men and women. No matter what kind of result you see, you need to go to the hospital quickly for further testing until you get scientific and reasonable test results to ensure the health of the fetus. Down syndrome screening results are for reference only, and a comprehensive examination is the final diagnosis result.
