SAVE MONEY ON TRAVEL DEALS

Spinal muscular atrophy, SMA, is the most common genetic cause of infant mortality.

Screenings cost about $400 each and 11,000 women would have to be screened to prevent one case of SMA, said Dr. Sarah Little of Massachusetts General Hospital. Little and her colleagues were to present their findings Friday at a Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine meeting in Chicago.

"Our findings show that screening everyone for SMA is not cost effective", Little said in a release Thursday. "Our results, however, were most sensitive to changes in the baseline prevalence of disease, suggesting that prenatal SMA screening may be cost effective in high risk populations, such as those with a family history of disease."

In 2008, the American College of Medical Genetics recommended screening should be made available to all pregnant women, while the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists last year recommended against screening in the general population.

 BREAKING STORIES

MRSA survivors say 'superbug' an epidemic

Minimally invasive MitraClip promising

Race may affect need for vitamin D

Confidence is key to gauging impressions

Blacks highest cancer risk, don't know it

Funds awarded to expand medical IT use

Millions of older ER patients got wrong Rx

Americans feeling better about environment

South Korea to fight Web addiction

Number error led to British sub accident

FCC to submit far-reaching broadband plan

Space shuttle Discovery problem reported

NASA considers sampling another asteroid

Crews search for man from sunken boat

Half-male and half-female chickens studied

Insulin-like growth factors studied

Hormone hikes cotton yields in droughts

Cells in amniotic fluid become stem cells

iPad sales: Zero to 51,000 in 2 hours

Legionnaires' disease outbreak feared