Second-trimester maternal serum inhibin-A screening for fetal Down syndrome in Asian women

✍ Scribed by Yung Hang Lam; Mary Hoi Yin Tang

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 153 KB
• Volume: 19
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0197-3851
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0223(199905)19:5<463::aid-pd574>3.0.co;2-q

✦ Synopsis

Case-control studies in the Caucasian population showed that maternal serum inhibin-A is elevated in Down syndrome pregnancies and may be a useful second-trimester marker in addition to human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP). Data in the Asian population are lacking. We measured inhibin-A levels in the stored maternal sera of 49 Down syndrome pregnancies and 341 controls with a commercially available assay and expressed them as the multiples of the median of the gestational week. The log means and standard deviations for case and control inhibin-A MOMs were 0.209, 0.226, and 0.002 and 0.177, respectively. Median inhibin-A MOM in Down syndrome cases was elevated to 1.62 (95 per cent confidence interval, 1.29-1.82). 36 per cent of Down syndrome cases were expected to be detected at a 5 per cent false-positive rate. However, inhibin-A MOMs were strongly correlated with hCG MOMs in the cases (r=0.73, p<0.001) and the controls (r=0.56, p<0.001). This will diminish the value of adding inhibin-A to the existing hCG and AFP screening protocol.