Cut-off values in newborn screening for inborn errors of metabolism in Saudi Arabia.

Background: Newborn screening identifies individuals affected by a specific disorder within an apparently healthy population prior to the appearance of symptoms so that appropriate interventions can be initiated in time to minimize the harmful effects. Data on population based cut-off values, disease ranges for true positive cases, false positive rates, true positive rates, cut-off verification and comparisons with international cut-off ranges have not been done for Saudi Arabia.

Objective: Establish population-based cut-off values and analyte ratios for newborn screening assays and clinically validate the values.