Objective: To assess whether the accuracy of risk estimation in antenatal screening for trisomy 18 using the Combined test can be improved by revising the truncation limits of two serum markers.
Methods: In an audit of data from 420 trisomy 18 and 573,754 unaffected singleton pregnancies screened at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, London (March 2003 to June 2017), the accuracy of risk estimation was assessed by inspection of a validation plot (the median predicted late first trimester Combined test risk plotted against observed prevalence within categories of predicted risk estimates). Using validation and probability plots, we assessed whether the revised pregnancy-associated plasma protein A (PAPP-A) and free β-human chorionic gonadotrophin (free β-hCG) truncation limits led to more accurate risk estimation and improved screening performance.
Results: With the lower truncation limits currently used for PAPP-A and free β-hCG (0.15 and 0.30 multiples of the median [MoM], respectively), risk was underestimated. Revised lower truncation limits of 0.05 MoM for both PAPP-A and free β-hCG led to greater accuracy, with an increase in the number of trisomy 18 pregnancies detected (from 85.4% to 90.2%) for a small increase in the false-positive rate (from 0.20% to 0.29%) at a 1 in 100 late first trimester risk cut-off.
Conclusion: The revised truncation limits for PAPP-A and free β-hCG increase the accuracy of trisomy 18 risk estimation and improve screening performance using the Combined test. Validation and probability plots are useful in setting screening marker truncation limits.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0969141318783021 | DOI Listing |
Sensors (Basel)
December 2024
School of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China.
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Key Laboratory of Prevention and Treatment of Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Diseases Ministry of Education, Jiangxi Province Key Laboratory of Biomaterials and Biofabrication for Tissue Engineering, Gannan Medical University, Ganzhou, 341000, Jiangxi, China.
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View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Chem Phys
December 2024
Department of Chemistry, University of the Pacific, Stockton, California 95204, USA.
Utilizing the sparsity of the electronic structure problem, fragmentation methods have been researched for decades with great success, pushing the limits of ab initio quantum chemistry ever further. Recently, this set of methods has been expanded to include a fundamentally different approach called excitonic renormalization, providing promising initial results. It builds a supersystem Hamiltonian in a second-quantized-like representation from transition-density tensors of isolated fragments, contracted with biorthogonalized molecular integrals.
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March 2025
State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Resources, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China; School of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China; Institute of Future Food Technology, JITRI, Yixing 214200, China. Electronic address:
Starch is a widely used and economically important polymer; however, its industrial applications are limited by certain shortcomings, such as retrogradation and high digestion rate. To overcome these limitations, native starches can be hydrolyzed by β-amylase, resulting in the production of β-limit dextrin (β-LD) and maltose as a co-product. β-LD retains the original inner core structure of its parent amylopectin and contains truncated external chains that is not prone to form exterior chain helical.
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