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Letters to the Editor |
1 Departments of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and2
Obstetrics and Gynecology, Women and Infants Hospital and, Brown Medical School, Providence, RI
3 Westerly Hospital, Westerly, RI
aAddress correspondence to this author at: Geralyn Lambert-Messerlian, Division of Prenatal and Special Testing, Women and Infants Hospital, 70 Elm Street, 2nd floor, Providence, Rhode Island 02903. Fax 401-276-7882; gmesserl@wihri.org.
| The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below. |
To the Editor:
Maternal serum screening for Down syndrome is commonly performed in the 2nd trimester using
fetoprotein (AFP), unconjugated estriol (uE3), human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), and inhibin A. Concentrations of each marker are combined with maternal age to calculate a patient-specific risk of fetal Down syndrome. In cases of Down syndrome, inhibin A concentration is, on average, approximately twice as high as in unaffected singleton pregnancies (1). Second trimester maternal serum inhibin A is also increased in twin pregnancies [1.99 multiples of the median (MoM) (1)] and in Turner syndrome with hydrops (3.91 MoM; (2)). Markedly increased inhibin A has been observed in pregnancies with complete hydatidiform mole [47 MoM; (3)]. Increased inhibin A may also be seen in nonpregnant women with ovarian cancer (4).
We describe a
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