Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0019270 (hernia)
 15,856 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Accurate fetal diagnosis became possible by the steadily increasingly complex techniques of amniocentesis, ultrasound, and ultrasound-guided fetal blood sampling and chorion villous sampling. A high degree of diagnostic accuracy for a wide variety of structural and metabolic anomalies is required. The field of fetal diagnosis has been extended to the point that a journal dedicated to this subject alone is a viable proposition. It is becoming apparent, however, that lesions that were well known and well understood when recognized in neonatal life appear in general to have a worse prognosis if the lesion is diagnosed in utero. Fetal surgery began with attempts to perform in utero transfusions for babies with erythroblastosis fetalis. For a while, there was competition between open surgical procedures and the percutaneous placement of blood through catheters introduced into the fetal peritoneal cavity from outside the mother's abdomen. For fetal transfusion, closed techniques proved far safer and just as efficacious. There has been a worldwide interest in shunting of hydrocephalus and obstructive uropathy. The results of shunting hydrocephalus have been disappointing, with most of the patients surviving, but most of the survivors being severely handicapped. The results of shunting obstructive uropathy were that only about 50 per cent of the babies survived, but it appeared that those that did survive did well. Other lesions that have been shunted have been hydrothoraces or fetal ascites. A limited number of open procedures have been carried out in the last few years in San Francisco, and it may well be that diaphragmatic hernia (in appropriately selected patients) will be a lesion that can be corrected by in utero surgery. The future of this field is exciting, but before this form of treatment becomes routine, the ethical implications of the possibility of fetal surgery must be defined much more clearly than is currently the case.
 ...
PMID:Fetal diagnosis and fetal surgery. 265 57

Recent developments and improvements in prenatal diagnostic methods, and in particular antenatal ultrasonography, have made intrauterine detection of fetal abnormalities possible. Most defects are best treated after birth, only a few disorders are potentially amenable to surgical treatment in utero. Studies in animal models have helped us to define the pathophysiology, to recognize the interference of the abnormality with organ development and to determine whether elimination of the anomaly might allow fetal development to proceed normally. In-utero repair of congenital diaphragmatic hernia has been practiced on a fetal lamb model but has not yet been attempted in human beings. Treatment of fetal hydrocephalus has been investigated in sheep and rhesus monkeys, and the pathophysiology and intrauterine treatment of fetal hydrocephalus has been studied in fetal lambs and monkeys, but the question of the reversibility of renal dysplasia has not been resolved. Animal models have been described for possible intrauterine treatment of skeletal abnormalities like spina bifida. But more knowledge of embryology and of the pathophysiology of the malformation is needed, as well as about the efficacy and feasibility of this method before it can be attempted in human beings. Prerequisites for fetal surgery include the selection of those fetuses who might benefit from intrauterine treatment, counselling of the family concerned, and a highly experienced multidisciplinary team including a perinatal obstetrician, an ultrasonographer, a pediatric surgeon and a neonatologist. In human beings intrauterine treatment has been performed in erythroblastosis fetalis, urinary tract obstruction and hydrocephalus with encouraging results. There are many ethical, legal and social questions which cannot be answered; new guidelines and rules will have to be laid down.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
 ...
PMID:[Problems of and possibilities in fetal surgery]. 389 50