Predicting the intrauterine fetal death of fetuses with cystic hygroma in early pregnancy

Abstract
We investigated whether it was possible to predict the prognosis of fetuses with cystic hygroma (CH) in early pregnancy based on the degree of neck thickening. We retrospectively analyzed 57 singleton pregnancies with fetuses with CH who were examined before the 22nd week of pregnancy. The fetuses were categorized according to the outcome, structural abnormalities at birth, and chromosomal abnormalities. Here, we proposed a new sonographic predictor with which we assessed neck thickening by dividing the width of the neck thickening by the biparietal diameter (BPD), which is expressed as the CH/BPD ratio (CBR). The median CBR in the intrauterine fetal death (IUFD) group (0.51) was significantly higher than that in the live birth group (0.27). No significant difference in the median CBR was found between the structural abnormalities group at birth and the no structural abnormalities group. And no significant difference in the median CBR was found between the chromosomal abnormality group and the no chromosomal abnormality group. We used receiver operating characteristic analysis to evaluate the CBR to predict IUFD. When the CBR cut‐off value was 0.5, IUFD could be predicted with a sensitivity of 52.9% and a specificity of 100%. It is possible to predict IUFD in fetuses with CH in early pregnancy if CBR is measured. However, even if CBR is measured, predicting the presence or absence of a structural abnormality at birth or a chromosomal abnormality is difficult.

Source: Congenital Anomalies - January 11, 2018 Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Authors: Mai Shimura, Hiroshi Ishikawa, Hiromi Nagase, Akihiko Mochizuki, Futoshi Sekiguchi, Naho Koshimizu, Toshiyuki Itai, Mizuha Odagami Tags: Original Article Source Type: research