Audit & Research

Audit Summary
  • Improvement in the detection of DS over the three year period.
  • Reduction in false positive rate since the introduction of TR.
  • Creation of age banding risks for screen positive testing.
  • A 1 in 2 risk from DS carries with it a 100% risk for an abnormal outcome to the pregnancy if we remove the use of nasal bone absence as a predictor of DS.
  • Identification of the nasal bone presence or absence as a weak marker in screening for DS.
  • The vast majority of women in our practice will proceed to terminate a pregnancy affected by DS.
  • Our detection rate is at least on par with published national data.
  • We have developed a previously unpublished methodology for follow up of the pregnancy outcomes by the use of verified email addresses.
  • The audit loop has begun with staff retraining and will be completed with another audit loop in 2008.
  • First trimester screening using our defined method has approximately a 4 times lower false positive rate than the standard triple test offered within the NHS.
Read Full Audit Report (pdf 153kb)

View graph showing Comparison of testing in first and second trimester of pregnancy for Downs syndrome (pdf 11kb)