Detection rates of the fetal anomaly screening programme (FASP) 11 key conditions in one unit: Is the recommended annual audit of any value?

摘要

What's already known on this topic? Detection rates of some of the prenatal conditions have been established only from long term regional or national studies. No previous published work has evaluated whether the Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme recommendation that individual units should annually audit their detection rates of 11 major conditions is of value. What does this study add? As they stand, the UK national recommendations for annual audit are of minimal value in the short term. Conditions of low prevalence and high detection rate are the least useful indicators of performance. We suggest that the auditing recommendations could be improved by grouping conditions and by expanding the target gestational age (e.g. up to 21weeks rather than within the 18-20+6 period recommended by Fetal Anomaly Scan).