Testimonials from Colleagues*
Institutions and universities regularly utilize fFN testing to manage patients with symptoms of preterm labor or to aid in managing high risk pregnancies.
Below are how some providers describe their experience with fFN.
Kathryn Shaw, MD, a perinatologist at White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles, finds fFN testing, to be "far superior" to other methods of assessing the risk of preterm delivery. Says Dr. Shaw:
Gary Joffe, MD, a perinatologist in Albuquerque, New Mexico, administers fFN tests, primarily to patients with symptoms of preterm labor, but also tests asymptomatic women with a history of preterm birth (PTB) or other risk factors for PTB. Dr. Joffe finds fetal fibronectin to be the "best predictor" of PTB.
Thomas A. Raskauskas, MD, of the North Shore Medical Center in Salem, Massachusetts, finds fFN testing to be "the best method to date" for assessing preterm delivery risk. He tests asymptomatic women with a history of preterm birth or other risk factors for PTB.
John M. Thorp, Jr, MD, is a perinatologist and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. The majority of his patients are high risk. Dr. Thorp relies on the high negative predictive value of the fFN test to avoid unnecessary treatment of preterm labor symptoms. He finds the test to be "superior to clinical judgment."
Dr. Thorp recalls a patient who was reluctant to become pregnant again due to preterm uterine activity in a previous pregnancy, and who did not want to be "sentenced" to bed rest again. He says:
Daniel Eller, MD, uses fFN testing in his urban, maternal-fetal medicine practice in Atlanta, Georgia. He tests hospitalized patients with shortened cervices or symptoms of preterm labor and outpatients with shortened cervices or other risk factors for PTD. fFN helps him determine which patients need to be hospitalized and for how long. He says that a negative test result allows him to be less aggressive with tocolytics and hospitalization than he otherwise would be.
Dr. Eller's patients reap the benefits when they avoid weeks or even months of hospitalization by virtue of testing negative. Of one patient in particular, he says
*The views expressed in these testimonials are the opinions of physicians, and are not necessarily the opinions of Hologic, Inc., its officers, directors, and employees.