Abstrakt

New-born screening in large teaching hospital-six years of experience

Su-Boon Yong, Yun-Tzu Chiou, Hao-Jan Yang, Ming-Tsung Lee, Tung-Ming Chang, Hui-Chien Lai, Tsung-Hua Wu, Kuender D Yang

Introduction: A nationwide new-born screening program was established in Taiwan in 1984, including screening for Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency. This study aimed to investigate the attendance rate and confirmation rate of G6PD deficiency screening, the rate of non-G6PD deficiency-related neonatal diseases, and to compare hospitalization and the length of hospital stay between G6PD-positive newborns and the matched controls.

Material and Methods: Between January 2008 and December 2013, 3,517 neonates were screened at our hospital. We retrospectively analysed data on the attendance rate and confirmation rate of G6PD deficiency and non-G6PD deficiency-related neonatal diseases. We also compared the risk of hospitalization and length of stay of the newborns found to be positive for G6PD deficiency in the screening program and the matched controls.

Results: The most common disease in the 3,517 screened newborns was G6PD deficiency. The positive attendance rate of G6PD deficiency was 2.76%, and the positive confirmation rate was 1.45%. There were no significant differences in the risk of hospitalization between the newborns who were initially screened as being positive for G6PD deficiency (OR: 0.92, 95% CI 0.523-1.619) and those confirmed to have G6PD deficiency (OR: 1.172, 95% CI 0.537-2.558) over the matched controls.

Conclusions: Our results suggest the benefits of newborn screening programs, and the importance of establishing specific guidelines to regulate the parental consent process and education is crucial to relieve the stress and anxiety of the parents of newborns.