NT results and questions

lala30

I am 35 and my risk alone was 1:180 and the result came back at 1:880. Pretty good , right? My doc askd if I wanted the materniT21 instead of doing the second part of the screening. I asked him if he thought my numbers were bad, he said no just offering it to all patients. My question is do any of u girls know if the second screen can be significantly worse results? If not then I feel content with the results and no desire to probe further except I will finish the 2nd part of the screening. Any opinions would help.

danuli8

That does sound good. I would be thrilled to get odds that good! Congrats!

I apologize in advance for the long response, but please bear with me. I would say MT21 has three advantages over just continuing with the second part of the screen, and they are:

1) MT21 is even more accurate than combining the results from the first-tri screen and the quad screen you do at ~15 weeks. The book I have from ACOG says that combining the Tri 1 and Tri 2 screens will detect 94-96% of Down's syndrome cases. That's good, but the MT21 will give you a 99.1% detection rate. That's as good as it gets without an amnio.

2) MT21 will give you additional info that the quad screen may not. MT21 also detects trisomies 13 and 18 in addition to Down's (trisomy 21). AND MT21 now tells you the baby's sex as well. So if you want to know whether it's a boy or girl, the MT21 test will tell you.

3) You could get the blood drawn for your MT21 this week and get the results back within a week or two, so you wouldn't have to wait several weeks until it's time for your second-tri screen.

The big disadvantage of MT21 is that your insurance might not cover it. I am with United Health Care and they suck. I already know they are not going to cover it, so I called the billing folks at Sequenom (the lab that does the MT21). They said that if my insurance refuses to pay, I only have to pay $235, but still, it's $235. So that might be something to consider.

I had my blood draw for the MT21 on Thursday (I was 12w4d). They took two vials for the test. I was told it would most likely be 7-10 business days before I get the results. Strangely, I am not wound up at all while I wait. I feel relieved that my part in all this is done. Soon enough I will know, and until then I have plenty of other things to keep me busy.

Edited to fix typo.

mrsjami

Maternit21 is very good for Downs, but not as accurate for t13 and t18. My doc doesn't even look at the first set of b/w b/c things can change after the second set. I would definitely make sure you did one or the other.