Next date: to be announced

Annual intensive courses on screening for Down's syndrome have been held at the Wolfson Institute since 1993. This three-day course is an intensive, theoretical and practical course in antenatal screening for Down's syndrome.

Course flyer

Available when the next course dates are announced.

Participants

The course is aimed at people who are, or expect to be, involved in antenatal screening for Down's syndrome, primarily: antenatal screening co-ordinators, counsellors, obstetricians, geneticists, public health doctors, laboratory directors and technicians.

The number of participants is limited to forty. This number is small enough to enable the course to be interactive. As with all education sessions provided by the Wolfson Institute, course participants are encouraged to ask questions and actively participate in discussion.

Participants on the course come from many disciplines and from many countries. As well as learning from the teaching staff, participants have the opportunity to learn from each other, comparing their practices with those of other countries and discovering how their role in the screening process fits in and relates to others.

Speakers

The core teaching staff is from the Wolfson Institute, outside experts from the US and specialists in related fields from neighbouring hospitals and laboratories.

Programme

The course covers all of the disciplines and fields of antenatal screening for Down's syndrome, from the principles of screening to the technical and practical issues. The topics covered relate to both first and second trimester screening using biochemical and ultrasound markers. The programme covers:

Background Milestones in antenatal screening Medical and genetic characteristics of Down’s syndrome Principles of screening MoM values, likelihood ratios and the calculation of risk Calculation of detection rates and false positive rates Current screening methods Screening in the first and second trimesters using biochemistry and ultrasound Physiology of serum markers Cost effectiveness of screening International screening programmes Factors affecting the screening markers and the calculation of risk Factors affecting the serum markers Updating age specific Down’s syndrome risk and recurrence risks Dealing with the problem of recurrent false positives Reporting risks: at first trimester, second trimester or term? Understanding bias Screening for other abnormalities and incidental findings using the screening markers The detection of other fetal abnormalities in Down’s syndrome screening programmes Using the markers to screen for pre-eclampsia CHD and high NT Primary prevention of NTDs with folic acid Diagnostic tests Prenatal diagnosis for raised risk of Down’s syndrome: QF-PCR or full karyotyping? Monitoring and audit Laboratory quality control Epidemiological monitoring and quality control of NT Monitoring your screening programme Patient perspective Information giving Future screening possibilities Contingent, sequential and mixture models to estimate risk Cross Trimester marker ratios First trimester ultrasound markers: Ductus venosus, Tricuspid regurgitation, Fetal Heart Rate and frontomaxillary facial angle Fetal nucleic acid Screening before 10 weeks Assessing the statistical robustness of new tests Workshops Principles of screening: risk calculation Interpretation of results Giving pre-test information and reporting results to patients Monitoring screening using software

Participants are provided with a course folder containing comprehensive notes to accompany all of the presentations and workshops.

Location

The course is held at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, London. For a map showing our location, please click here.

Registration

Available when the next course dates are announced.

Contact

For more information about the course please contact
Cecily Cromby
Course Organiser
Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine
Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry
Charterhouse Square
London, EC1M 6BQ

Tel: 020 7882 6258
Fax: 020 7882 6290
c.f.cromby@qmul.ac.uk

What the participants think

Here are some comments from the participants of the intensive courses that have been held over the past fourteen years:

"I have really enjoyed the course and have a lot to take back to my own department. All aspects of screening were covered, from current to potential programmes. The speakers were very enthusiastic and informative and the course book is invaluable. It was also good to meet others from different backgrounds."

"I thoroughly enjoyed the course and felt that I got a lot of information that will be tremendously useful in my lab."

"The workshop on principles of screening was extremely helpful. It gave me an understanding of what goes on in our own 'black box'."

"The course gives us the latest information on antenatal screening and in addition it helps us understand a lot of the principles that up to now, even though they were used by us, weren't completely understood."

"The course was extremely interactive with great incentive to participate - one of the most stimulating and satisfying courses I have attended."