The importance of anatomy scan at the 11-14-week screening

Abstract

In the last decades, the screening for Down syndrome brought the 11- to 14-week scan to the forefront of modern preg­nan­cy care. Initially just a nuchal scan as part of the com­bined test, it upgraded to a detailed anatomy scan that should be done always where the ultrasound machine and the expertise allow, as instructed by current guidelines. Though a lot of the anatomy can be assessed at this age, it is still mainly used only for the measurements necessary for the combined tests or for noninvasive prenatal testing, hence a lot of the structural anomalies are missed. Our pa­per focuses on cases in which the anatomy scan was not per­formed, and structural and chromosomal anomalies were missed.