Maternal serum screening in the West Bank : an audit of Palestinian and non-Palestinian women having triple tests

Article published in : PSP, 2011, vol. 16, p.36-38 ; Objectives The aim of this second phase of study was to detect or confirm any change in the screening results of Triple tests carried out on Palestinian women living in the West Bank during the period 2004-2010 if compared to that done between 2000-2003. Methods Data on 1354 pregnant Palestinian and nonPalestinian women living in the West Bank (Filipino women) who were offered the Triple test during the period 2004-2010 were analyzed statistically using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17 Results In this study, out of 1354 subjects, 1267 were eligible for the final analysis. The mean expected age at delivery ± SE (standard error) of the Palestinian women was 27.02±0.17 years compared with 25.5 ±0.2 years in the first study. The AFP results of the Palestinian women tested using AFP MoM cutoff of 2.5 showed that 2.7% had high concentrations compared with only 1.3% in the first study. Filipino women showed the same result for AFP. Our study showed that women with high risk of Down’s syndrome were 5% compared with 2.8% in the first phase of study. Conclusion Our study showed that within about six years there is increase in both the percentage of women with high AFP results and with those with high risk of Down’s syndrome which becomes similar to that obtained in the international community. This may be due to direct result of the increase in the mean age of women.