New recommendations for miscarriage diagnosis

New research results have indicated that perhaps Drs should wait longer for a second scan to confirm an early miscarriage.  Current NICE recommendations are that after women have been seen following signs of an early miscarriage for a scan a second scan should be carried out a week later to confirm the diagnosis.  But this new research indicates that this may be leading to a small number of  women (about 2%) being given a wrong diagnosis and could perhaps be leading to some healthy pregnancies being terminated.  The researchers therefore recommend a later second scan, two weeks after the first, as they found that results at this point were more reliable.

Professor Tom Bourne, from Imperial College London, who led the study, said “Women should be able to rely on a diagnosis of miscarriage. It’s an area of medicine where the highest levels of caution are warranted. Just one misdiagnosis of miscarriage is too many…What we are saying is, in most cases, you simply wait a little bit longer, perhaps 14 days.  If you do that then the chance of a false positive is just not there, it’s zero per cent.”

Dr Paul Fogarty, a consultant obstetrician and vice-president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said: “It’s essential that both the clinicians and the parents are 100% confident that the pregnancy is not viable before making a diagnosis of miscarriage. If there is any doubt the scans will be repeated.  This study adds to our knowledge of clinical practice and will be considered when the guidelines are next updated.”

Read the research here

An article about the results can be viewed here