Origin of newborn screening programs and their beginnings in Spain

The first newborn screening programs to detect congenital errors of the metabolism and other endocrinal diseases started in the late 1950s and, one decade later, were introduced in Spain. Since then they have evolved considerably, but in a very heterogeneous way, at both the international level and the regional level. The continuous scientific and technological advances, basically since the year 2000, have accentuated these inequalities, making this question into an inexhaustible subject of review, debate and argument up until the present. This review aims to gather, in summarized fashion, the origins of the newborn screening programs and their beginnings in Spain as a first step in analyzing their development, evolution and current situation. This year updating is expected to take place in all the Spanish autonomous regions following publication in November 2014 of a state order that regulates and attempts to homogenize these programs.