Browsing by Author "Orgul, Gokcen"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3

Budget impact of incorporating non-invasive prenatal testing in prenatal screening for Down syndrome in Turkey
(2019) Okem, Zeynep Guldem; Orgul, Gokcen; Kasnakoglu, Berna Tari; Cakar, Mehmet; Beksac, Mehmet Sinan
Objectives: To provide information to the government about the budget impact of implementing non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) into prenatal screening strategies to detect Down syndrome (DS) in singleton pregnancies in Turkey; the likely costs or savings associated with NIPT in comparison to the current practice were calculated. Methods: A decision-analytic model was developed to calculate the cost estimates for 1,309,771 women who gave birth in 2016; 84.8% of whom were <35-years-of-age. The superior combined test (CT) among current strategies is compared with contingent NIPT for women <35-years-of-age; and usual practice of amniocentesis (AC) for women >= 35 years-of-age was replaced with universal NIPT. Results: When the market price of NIPT (1,077 PPPUS$) is used, contingent NIPT offered to high-risk women <35-years-of-age adds 34,907,225 PPPUS$; and for women-35 >= years-of-age the universal NIPT leads to 142,785,818 PPPUS$ more cost to the government compared to current strategies. The additional costs with NIPT are partially compensated by the cost-savings due to reduction of the number of invasive tests and procedure related losses (17,826,476 PPPUS$ for women <35-years-of-age and 37,070 PPPUS$ for women >= 35-years-of-age). Results are sensitive to the NIPT costs; with a lower cost of NIPT, a total saving would be 33,116,046 PPPUS$ with new strategies. Conclusions: NIPT might be the choice of prenatal screening strategies if its price is lowered to economically acceptable levels. Until that time, currently accepted protocols seem to be more realistic. On the other hand, decision makers should also consider possible savings and the women's quality of life that can be improved with the new technology. (C) 2019 Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Concerns of Pregnant Women in "Prenatal Screening/Diagnosis" Practice and Termination of Pregnancy
(2020) Kasnakoglu, Berna Tari; Cakar, Mehmet; Okem, Zeynep Guldem; Tanacan, Atakan; Fadiloglu, Erdem; Orgul, Gokcen; Beksac, Mehmet Sinan; 32157675
Objective To investigate the reasons for decision-making and concerns of patients in the field of prenatal screening, invasive prenatal diagnostic testing (IPDT), and termination of pregnancy (TOP). Study Design This questionnaire-based study consisted of 107 pregnant women who were referred for prenatal screening to the Hacettepe University Hospital. The questionnaire given to patients was prepared from scratch since there is no standard set of questions measuring patients' feelings and concerns regarding prenatal screening/diagnosis, IPDT, and TOP. Results Our questionnaire results showed that it is possible to classify decision-making factors into 6 groups: psychological, social, fear, religious/ faith, support, and trust. The majority of patients were undecided (48.6 %) about IPDT if prenatal screening test results were risky. Only 23.4 % of patients were willing to accept IPDT. On the other hand, 55.1 % of patients were not willing to undergo TOP if the fetal karyotyping results were abnormal. Religious factors seem to be important in refusing IPDT and TOP. Conclusion Physicians should re-evaluate their practice in the field of prenatal screening and diagnosis in light of the high refusal rates of IPDT and TOP. Understanding factors influencing women's decision-making processes provides insight for service providers to help women at high risk of having foetal anomalies to make better-informed choices.
Economic Analysis of Prenatal Screening Strategies for Down Syndrome in Singleton Pregnancies in Turkey
(2017) Okem, Zeynep Culdem; Orgul, Gokcen; Kasnakoglu, Berna Tari; Cakar, Mehmet; Beksac, M. Sinan; 29040895
Objectives: To examine the costs and outcomes of different screening strategies for Down Syndrome (DS) in singleton pregnancies. Study design: A decision-analytic model was developed to compare the costs and the outcomes of different prenatal screening strategies. Five strategies were compared for women under 35-year of age: 1A) triple test (TT), 2A); combined test (CT), 3A) Non-invasive Prenatal Screening Test by using cell free fetal DNA (NIPT), 4A) and 5A) NIPT as a second-step screening for high-risk patients detected by either TT, or CT respectively. For women >= 35-year of age, 1B) implementing invasive test (amniocentesis-AC) and 2B) NIPT for all women were compared. Data was analyzed to obtain the outcomes, total costs, the cost per women and the incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) for screening strategies. Results: Among the current strategies for women under 35 years old, CT is clearly dominated to TT, as it is more effective and less costly. Although, the current routine practice (2A) is the least-costly strategy, implementing NIPT as a second step screening to high-risk women identified by CT (5A) would be more effective than 2A; leading to a 10.2% increase in the number of detected DS cases and a 96.3% reduction in procedural related losses (PRL). However, its cost to the Social Security Institution that is a public entity would be 17 times higher and increase screening costs by 1.5 times. Strategy 5A would result in an incremental cost effectiveness of 6,873,082 (PPP) US$ when compared to the current one (2A). Strategy 1B-for offering AC to all women >= 35-year of age is dominated over NIPT (2B), as it would detect more DS cases and would be less costly. On the other hand, there would be 206 PRL associated with AC, but NIPT provides clear clinical benefits as there would be no PRL with NIPT. Conclusions: NIPT leads to very high costs despite its high effectiveness in terms of detecting DS cases and avoiding PRL. The cost of NIPT should be decreased, otherwise, only individuals who can afford to pay from out-of-pocket could benefit. We believe that reliable cost-effective prenatal screening policies are essential in countries with low and smiddle income and high birth rates as well. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.