Patient's question:
My sister is 15 weeks pregnant. The doctor gave her a prescription to have the Down syndrome screening at 17 weeks. However, when she was supposed to be 17 weeks pregnant, she forgot to go due to some issues. She wants to delay it by one week and is wondering if it will affect the test results. I want to ask, what does the Down syndrome screening check for?Doctor's answer:
The triple screen test is one of the earliest non-invasive prenatal screening tests for chromosomal abnormalities, primarily used to screen for the risk of Down syndrome in the fetus. The specificity of the triple screen test is not very high. If the test results show a critical risk value or high risk, further non-invasive DNA testing or amniocentesis may be required to confirm the diagnosis. Generally, young pregnant women are recommended to undergo the triple screen test.