Age Indication or First Trimester Screening? – A Comparison of the Test performance and the Resulting Financial Consequences

Objective: In Germany every pregnant woman at age 35 or older has to be offered an invasive genetic testing [1–3]. An alternative strategy is provided by the first trimester screening (FTS) according to Nicolaides [4, 5]. It was the aim of this study to investigate the test performance of FTS and the resulting financial consequences in comparison to the age-indicated screening (AIS). Material and methods: At the Medical University of Hanover 2,743 combined FTS have been performed at women between 16 and 45 years of age. For risk assessment the PIA Fetal Database® software was utilized and all measurements were r…