Key clinical point: A pregnancy-specific questionnaire to perform risk factor-based screening for elevated lead levels during pregnancy identified parturients with elevated blood lead levels with good sensitivity but poor specificity.
Major finding: Almost 78% of participants reported at least 1 risk factor for lead, with the questionnaire showing high sensitivity (100%) but low specificity (22%) for identifying detectable maternal lead levels. The blood lead level was clinically reportable in 2.2% of participants, with 1 of them having a blood lead level above 5 μg/dL.
Study details: Findings are from an analysis of 92 parturients with a singleton pregnancy ≥34 weeks’ gestation who had data recorded for blood lead levels and completed a lead risk factor survey modified for pregnancy.
Disclosures: This work was supported by the Harvard Catalyst, Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center, Harvard University, and others. The authors declared no conflict of interests.
Source: Johnson KM et al. Matern Child Health J. 2022 Jan 12. doi: 10.1007/s10995-021-03325-x .