Employ ductus venous blood flow in the early detection of trisomy 21, trisomy 18, and trisomy 13: A meta-analysis

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Ductus venosus (DV) Doppler has been suggested as a biomarker for the early screening of trisomy diseases. However, results from different studies have been largely inconsistent. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between DV and top 3 fetal aneuploidies by a systematical meta-analysis: trisomy 21 (T21), trisomy 18 (T18), and trisomy 13 (T13). METHODS: We performed a literature search covering articles from Medline, PubMed, RePORTER, and Elsevier publications. DV-T21/T18/T13 relation data were extracted from 9, 7, and 6 previous studies, respectively, including 31,053, 28,092 and 26,721 pregnant women worldwide. Both random-effects and fixed-effect model were used to study the log odds ratio (LOR) of T21, T18, and T13 in case of DV. Four potential influential factors were studied using a multiple linear regression (MLR) model, including maternal age, data age, sample size, and population region. RESULTS: DV was significantly related to T21, T18, and T13 (LOR = 3.44, 3.89 and 3.46; P value <2.1E-13). Significant between-study variance was observed for T21 (P value <1.71E-14), but not for T18 (P value >.05) and T13 (P value >.87). MLR results suggested that significant influential factors could include population region (P value <.0021), but not sample size, data age, and maternal age (P value >.078). CONCLUSIONS: Integrating DV could help in the detection of trisomy. However, accuracy and validity may vary depending on the population regions, which need further study.