[Prematurity and neonatal screening]

Abstract

Neonatal screening for metabolic and endocrine diseases has clear benefits for full-term infants by providing early diagnosis and treatment to prevent or limit the severe adverse outcomes which occur in untreated infants. The situation of preterm infants is more complicated, with an increased risk of false-positive as well as false-negative screening results. The aim of this work was to evaluate the impact of prematurity in screening strategies in order to answer practical questions: is there a need or not to adjust cut-off values in accord to gestational parameters? Is there a need or not to repeat screening tests at a later age?