Maternal serum screening for Down's syndrome, open neural tube defects andtrisomy 18

Maternal serum screening identifies women at an increased risk of a pregnan cy with Down's syndrome or trisomy 18 or an open neural tube defect. The tr iple test, consisting of maternal serum alpha -fetoprotein, unconjugated es triol and human chorionic gonadotropin was carried out by a chemiluminescen ce immunoassay method in our laboratory. The study consisted of 373 pregnan t women. The gestational range for the study group was 14-22 weeks. The mea n 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 synd rome 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 signifi cant decrease in the detection rate.