Andreas Glenthøj: Improving Antenatal Haemoglobinopathy Screening in Denmark
Andreas Glenthøj, Consultant Hematologist, Head of the Danish Red Blood Cell Center at Rigshospitalet, shared post on LinkedIn, about a recent article he and his colleagues co-authored published in Scandinavian Journal of Clinical and Laboratory Investigation, adding:
”Today, we published a paper that I have been looking forward to sharing.
At the Danish Red Blood Cell Center at Rigshospitalet, we analyse samples from pregnant women undergoing screening for haemoglobinopathies. This allowed us to ask a fairly simple question: How well does the Danish antenatal screening programme work in clinical practice?
The answer is that there is considerable room for improvement.
In the Capital Region of Denmark, we estimated that 47% of pregnant women in the target population were screened. At the same time, no haemoglobinopathy tests were requested from 193 of 618 general practices during the two-year study period, and we found striking differences between municipalities.
These findings highlight how difficult targeted screening programmes can be to implement consistently in busy clinical practice. Antenatal care involves many competing priorities, and targeted screening requires the relevant population to be identified and the correct test to be actively requested.
This matters because the purpose of antenatal screening is to identify carrier couples early enough to provide appropriate counselling and allow informed reproductive choices.
Fortunately, things are already moving in the right direction. The Danish Health Authority and regional partners have introduced a new WebReq function designed to make haemoglobinopathy screening easier to integrate into the first antenatal visit.
Whether this will be enough remains to be seen. Together with Anne Winther Larsen and other laboratory colleagues in Aarhus, as well as the Danish Health Authority, we will follow the implementation closely and assess whether it leads to improved screening coverage.
Thanks to all co-authors: Jens Helby, Mathilde Charlotte Schmidt, Maymana Hashim Mohamed Mohamed Salih, and Jesper Petersen.”
Title: Coverage of antenatal haemoglobinopathy screening in the Capital Region of Denmark: a laboratory-based evaluation of screening implementation
Authors: Andreas Glenthøj, Jens Helby, Mathilde Charlotte Schmidt, Maymana Hashim Mohamed Mohamed Salih, Jesper Petersen
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