{"title":"Establishing a Newborn Screening Programme: A Success Story from a Low-Resource Setting.","authors":"Hafsa Majid, Lena Jafri, Sibtain Ahmed, Khadija Nuzhat Humayun, Salman Kirmani, Aysha Habib Khan","doi":"10.29271/jcpsp.2025.03.387","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The purpose of this communication was to assess the clinical effectiveness of a newborn screening (NBS) programme for congenital hypothyroidism (CH) in a tertiary care centre. This cross-sectional study was conducted from January 2019 to December 2023. Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) on dried blood spot (DBS) specimens collected after 24 hours of birth with >10 mIU/L was further confirmed by testing serum TSH and FT4, and CH cases were referred to a paediatric endocrinologist for management. During the study period, coverage of NBS was tracked. Over a four-year period, 30,402 newborns were screened, with 96.2% coverage (total births-31610). Positive screening results (TSH>10 mIU/L) were found in 1.9% of neonates (n = 586), with confirmatory tests performed in 63.13% (n = 370) of these cases. CH was confirmed in 27 cases, with an incidence of 1:1126. This study demonstrated that NBS for CH was successfully implemented and highly effective. However, there is a need to further improve recall rates. Key Words: Congenital hypothyroidism, Dried blood spot testing, Newborn screening, Clinical efficacy.</p>","PeriodicalId":94116,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the College of Physicians and Surgeons--Pakistan : JCPSP","volume":"35 3","pages":"387-389"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of the College of Physicians and Surgeons--Pakistan : JCPSP","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.29271/jcpsp.2025.03.387","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The purpose of this communication was to assess the clinical effectiveness of a newborn screening (NBS) programme for congenital hypothyroidism (CH) in a tertiary care centre. This cross-sectional study was conducted from January 2019 to December 2023. Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) on dried blood spot (DBS) specimens collected after 24 hours of birth with >10 mIU/L was further confirmed by testing serum TSH and FT4, and CH cases were referred to a paediatric endocrinologist for management. During the study period, coverage of NBS was tracked. Over a four-year period, 30,402 newborns were screened, with 96.2% coverage (total births-31610). Positive screening results (TSH>10 mIU/L) were found in 1.9% of neonates (n = 586), with confirmatory tests performed in 63.13% (n = 370) of these cases. CH was confirmed in 27 cases, with an incidence of 1:1126. This study demonstrated that NBS for CH was successfully implemented and highly effective. However, there is a need to further improve recall rates. Key Words: Congenital hypothyroidism, Dried blood spot testing, Newborn screening, Clinical efficacy.