Patient's question:
Yesterday afternoon, I took my precious son to the hospital for a thorough screening test for Down syndrome. Due to many reasons, I left before the results were ready and only received the result slip today. I would like to ask, how should I read the Down syndrome screening results?Doctor's answer:
The screening results for Down syndrome are primarily obtained by extracting the pregnant woman's serum and combining factors such as her gestational age, age, and weight to estimate the potential risk. Generally, a risk below 1:1000 is considered low risk; a risk between 1:1000 and 1:300 is considered moderate risk; and if the risk is greater than 1:300, it is considered high risk. It is important to note that Down syndrome screening is only used to assess the likelihood of fetal illness, and a higher numerical risk does not necessarily mean the fetus will be malformed.