Maternal serum triple marker levels in immigrants to Israel from ethiopia

Objectives: To determine if Ethiopian immigrants have similar triple marker levels as the general Israeli population. Material and Methods: Second-trimester maternal serum results on 346 Ethiopians were obtained from records of 36,309 women. Two series were constructed for comparison among patients screened between 2000 and 2001 ('old group') and 2005 and 2007 ('new group'). Results: The median and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were: α-fetoprotein (AFP) 1.080 multiples of median (MoM) (95% CI 1.03-1.13); human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) 0.895 MoM (95% CI 0.82-0.97), and unconjugated estriol (uE³) 1.050 MoM (95% CI 1.00-1.10). The differences between the AFP and hCG medians for the old and new series were not statistically significant (p = 0.06 and 0.20) whilst the uE³ difference was significant (p = 0.04). There was a general tendency for the levels to be closer to 1 MoM over time. Conclusions: Triple marker serum levels of AFP and hCG among Ethiopian patients may need to be slightly corrected, particularly for hCG.