Changing the heel prick test in the SUS must be accompanied by other measures

published on 06/21/2022 18:09 / updated on 06/21/2022 18:10

The president of the Brazilian Society of Neonatal Screening for Inborn Errors of Metabolism (SBTEIM), Tânia Bachega, defended this Tuesday (21/6) that the implementation of the foot test extended to all of Brazil must take into account the specificities of health in each region. Moreover, the doctor says that other measures must be taken together to improve the fight against rare diseases in the country.

“In other states where this [implantação do teste ampliado] has already been done, as in São Paulo, the coverage index shows that 98% of babies born are subjected to this diagnostic test. So there are states where screening is very organized,” Tânia said. “Even with the drop in birth rates that happened last year, probably because of the pandemic, we had 600,000 births in the year. . This is equivalent to [número] of European countries. From our point of view, as SBTEIM, this population deserves to have access to new health technologies,” he added.

The doctor participated in the second painting of the CB.Forum “Expanding the foot test: a fundamental step for the early diagnosis of rare diseases”, organized by the Mail. Today’s event discussed the challenges of expanding the heel prick test to encompass 51 conditions, including rare conditions such as spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). Also present at the table were the president of Casa Hunter, Antoine Souheil Daher; São Paulo State Health Department Newborn Screening Program Coordinator, Carmela Grindler; and the general superintendent of the Jô Clemente Institute, Daniela Mendes.

confirmation tests

“On the other hand, we have regions that are less economically developed, which today are struggling to cope with the six diseases [no teste]. Thus, in our view, developed regions need [do teste ampliado], are already in a position to act. Now we can’t help but look at where the triage is not going well,” Tânia said.

The doctor also pointed out that the foot test, if positive, does not confirm that the child has the disease. confirmatory tests, specific to each disease, must be carried out to complete the diagnosis. Some parts of the country, however, do not perform these confirmatory tests. According to the president of SBTEIM, it is necessary to train pediatricians and geneticists to better diagnose and treat the 45 new diseases that would be included in the test.

“We tried to get closer to the MEC [Ministério da Educação e Cultura] have a rare disease grade at the end of their studies [do curso de Medicina]. If we now have a national program, which means a great long-term development, if we have a foot test very close to what is done in the United States, we must also think about treating these diseases well. We have to think about our graduation grid”, defended Bachega.