The Impacts of the Prenatal Ultrasonogram on the Pediatric Surgery

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Prenatal diagnosis of congenital anomalies provides the information for the perinatal treatment, which can be beneficial to the patients. Yonsei University is one of the largest tertiary referral centers in Korea and its achievement in pediatric surgery is representative figure of pediatric surgery in Korea. This achievement is used to assess the impacts of prenatal ultrasonograms on the doutcomes of prenally diagnosed anomalies in the neonates. METHODS: Between 1991 and 2000, 41,458 prenatal ultrasonograms were performed on the pregnant women and the fetal abdominal abnormalities were suspected in 165 fetuses. Of these, 87 fetuses were delivered and the abnormalities were finally confirmed. Theses 87 fetuses was the basis of this study in terms of their prenatal and final diagnosis with the outcomes. RESULTS: Among 87 fetuses, 17 cases were terminated in relation to the maternal health or multiple anomalies. Of the remaining 70 fetuses, 55 patients survived. Among the prenatal diagnoses of 87 fetuses, final diagnosis were made from 75 fetuses and the accuracy of the prenatal diagnosis was found to be 60.0% (45/75). Surgical correction was necessary in 44 cases to confirm the diagnosis and of these, 40 patients survived after the surgical correction. CONCLUSION: Prenatal diagnosis of the congenital anomalies will improve postnatal outcomes by proper surgical management. However, it can affect the rate terminations of pregnancies even though its accuracy is not so high. To advance the knowledge of the fetal pathophysiology, pediatric surgeons must play an important role in the prenatal diagnosisin relation to the postnatal treatment of the anomalies.