Systematic screening in Israel is an opportunity to diagnose the risks of giving birth to a child with anatomical or mental defects caused by chromosomal anomalies and mutations during the early stages of intrauterine development. At the Top Ihilov center, screening is conducted using high-precision ultrasound equipment and modern laboratory setups.
For systematic screening during pregnancy, non-invasive diagnostic methods (ultrasound examination and blood tests) are used, and if non-invasive tests reveal a significant risk of disorders, invasive diagnostics (amniocentesis, etc.) are performed for a more accurate prognosis.
Conducting Systematic Screening at Top Ihilov
Many women believe that systematic screening is a waste of time. If the future mother feels fine, why undergo additional examinations? Then they have to worry and wait for test results. However, screening is necessary.
Screening consists of one or often several studies that people of a certain category undergo. In the case of prenatal screening, this category includes pregnant women. Screening is designed to detect developmental pathologies of the fetus at an early stage. This screening consists of ultrasound and biochemical blood tests. Comprehensive processing of ultrasound data and biochemistry allows for predicting the risks of genetic disorders in the fetus – Down syndrome, Klinefelter syndrome, Edwards syndrome, etc.
Approximately 90% of all pregnant women in Israel undergo screening – practically all who register at a women's clinic and are officially monitored by obstetricians-gynecologists.
Ultrasound examination has a fairly high accuracy – about 65-85%, and the ultrasound diagnostic machines used at the Top Ihilov center allow increasing it to 70-87%. Thanks to this, our specialists achieve a significant reduction in the likelihood of false predictions already at the initial screening stage.
If screening reveals high risks of pathology, more detailed studies follow, through which geneticists establish the cause of the problem more thoroughly, and then – invasive diagnostics, including amniocentesis, chorionic villus sampling, etc. If prenatal screening, as a sufficiently extensive and routine study, is characterized by not very high accuracy, invasive diagnostics allow for detecting chromosomal disorders in the fetus much more accurately. It provides the opportunity to directly examine the cells of the fetus and identify defects based not on indirect signs, as in the case of ultrasound, but on direct examination of chromosomes.
One of the new screening methods is the DNA test. It allows for studying the child's DNA based on the mother's blood material. This test provides the opportunity, firstly, to establish the presence of pathology, and secondly – to accurately determine the child's gender. While standard tests diagnose possible risks based on the concentrations of proteins or antibodies in the mother's blood (if a woman falls into the risk group, she has to undergo invasive diagnostics), the DNA test can become an excellent alternative to such diagnostics. Israeli doctors are confident that soon such tests will successfully replace invasive diagnostic methods and will themselves become an integral part of systematic screening.
Non-invasiveness is one of the advantages of the DNA test. The main advantage of this diagnostics is the highest accuracy, significantly surpassing the accuracy of biochemical studies (up to 99%). The popularity of this test is growing every year – if at the very beginning of its introduction into prenatal screening studies, tens of thousands of women underwent the test, now in the USA, China, and Europe, hundreds of thousands of future mothers undergo the DNA test annually.
According to the results of several dozen recent studies, the accuracy of non-invasive prenatal testing of cell-free DNA is very high. This screening method is particularly sensitive in detecting Down syndrome, Edwards syndrome, and Patau syndrome. On average, the sensitivity of the test for Down syndrome was 99.3%, and for Edwards syndrome and Patau syndrome – 97.4%.
Systematic Screening in Israel – Price
The government of the State of Israel pays close attention to screening diagnostics and the treatment of genetic pathologies. This is partly due to the somewhat higher incidence of fetal developmental defects compared to average statistical indicators in other countries. Thanks to the active participation of the state, systematic screening in Israel is significantly different in cost from similar diagnostics in other countries. For example, the price for systematic screening in Israel is lower than in the United Kingdom or the USA by 30-50%.
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Screening at the Top Ihilov Clinic – Reliable Methods, Quick Results
- The specialists at the clinic have extensive experience in diagnosing genetic disorders using both non-invasive and invasive methods. All studies are performed in a timely manner.
- Top Ihilov uses the most advanced technologies and modern tests.
- Systematic screening in Israel: cost – lower, accuracy of results – higher. Top Ihilov often has discount programs: leave a request and find out if you qualify for a discount.
- Systematic screening in Israel: reviews. High accuracy is confirmed by reviews: thousands of women have undergone the study in the prenatal department of Top Ihilov and have given birth to healthy babies. Those patients who had developmental pathologies detected received timely medical assistance.
- The organization of diagnostics is handled by the staff of the international department: patients are relieved of solving everyday and medical issues.