Michala Balunová, Jana Šaligová, Ľudmila Potočňáková, Milan Kuchta, Ingrid Schusterová, Eva Sádová
The intent of newborn screening from dry blood spot (NBS) is to detect fatal or disabling conditions prior to their clinical
manifestations. Mandatory NBS in Slovakia has been extended since January 2013. It includes 10 inborn errors of
metabolism (IEM) – phenylketonuria, 2 organic acidurias, one aminoacidopathy and 6 defects of β-oxidation of fatty
acids. More IEM are part of periphery NBS, which is enabled by tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) from the same dry
blood spot.
We retrospectively studied the group of newborns reported as IEM (from both mandatory and periphery NBS) living in
east Slovakia region in the period January 1st of 2013 to April 30th of 2015.
We analyzed 50 abnormal NBS results, recalled from Newborn Screening Centre (NSC) of Slovak Republic to recall center
in Children University Hospital in Košice.
Out of 16 abnormal mandatory NBS results were 14 confirmed to be positive (87.5%). Confirmed diagnoses encompass
10 cases of phenylketonuria/hyperphenylalaninemia and 4 cases of medium-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency
(MCAD). Out of 34 abnormal periphery NBS results were 16 results confirmed by diagnostic testing to be diseases
(47%), 15 results were not confirmed (47%) and 2 results are still in the process of diagnostic testing (5.9%).
With the expansion of newborn screening program grows the number of children diagnosed with IEM. The results from
east Slovakia region demonstrate the importance of including MCAD deficiency in the panel of screened diseases becuase
of its clinical presentation and relatively high incidence.