MATERNAL WEIGHT DIFFERENCES DO NOT EXPLAIN ETHNIC-DIFFERENCES IN BIOCHEMICAL SCREENING

In previous work, we and others have shown that serum levels of a-feto protein, human chorionic gonadotropin, and estriol vary among the four commonly defined racial/ethnic groups seen in the United States: whit e, African-American, Asian, and Hispanic. We have suggested that bette r sensitivity and specificity could improve screening sensitivity and specificity. However. it has been argued that systematic weight differ ences among the groups could explain the variation. We evaluated the r esults from 208,257 patients having screening and found systematic wei ght differences. However, these differences were not as large as the r acial/ethnic differences, showing that weight does not fully explain t he discrepancy, and, therefore, four separate data bases give more acc urate results.