- Home>
- Specialties>
- General Medicine>
- Summary and Comment
BENEFITS OF HIV SCREENING IN WOMEN OF CHILDBEARING AGE.
Routine screening of women of childbearing age has been proposed as a way to reduce the transmission of HIV to infants, but the potential impact of such programs is unknown. Investigators tested umbilical-cord blood from 602 infants delivered at a New York City municipal hospital and found that 12 samples (2 percent) showed evidence of HIV infection. Seven of the 12 seropositive mothers had risk factors for AIDS.
The prevalence of HIV infection found in this study is higher than the rate associated with other diseases for which screening programs are already in place. Although one would expect the prevalence of HIV seropositivity to be lower in other patient populations, the data suggest that screening may be useful in at least some locations as a way of detecting women who might give birth to infected infants.
— THL
Published in Journal Watch General Medicine November 27, 1987
Citation(s):
Landesman S; Minkoff H; Holman S; McCalla S; Sijin O. Implications for human immunodeficiency virus testing programs of pregnant women. JAMA 1987 Nov 20 258 2701-2703.
- Medline abstract (Free)
Your Remark:
To ensure that your Reader Remark is not formatted as one long paragraph, precede new paragraphs with either a blank line or an indentation.