Pregnancy Termination and Postnatal Major Congenital Heart Defect Prevalence After Introduction of Prenatal Cardiac Screening.

Importance: Prenatal cardiac screening of the first and second trimesters has had a major impact on postnatal prevalence of congenital heart defects (CHDs), rates of termination of pregnancy (TOP), and outcomes among children born alive with CHDs. Objective: To examine the prenatal and postnatal incidence of major CHDs (ie, necessitating intervention within the first year of life), detection rate trends, rates of TOP, and the association of cardiac screening with postnatal outcomes. Design, Settings, and Participants: In this cross-sectional study, 3827 fetuses with antenatally diagnosed major CHDs in the Czech Republic (population 10.7 million) between 1991 and 2021 were prospectively evaluated with known outcomes and associated comorbidities. Prenatal and postnatal prevalence of CHD in an unselected population was assessed by comparison with a retrospective analysis of all children born alive with major CHDs in the same period (5454 children), using national data registry. Data analysis was conducted from January 1991 to December 2021. Main Outcomes and Measures: Prenatal detection and postnatal prevalence of major CHDs and rate of TOPs in a setting with a centralized health care system over 31 years. Results: A total of 3 300 068 children were born alive during the study period. Major CHD was diagnosed in 3827 fetuses, of whom 1646 (43.0%) were born, 2069 (54.1%) resulted in TOP, and 112 (2.9%) died prenatally. The prenatal detection rate increased from 6.2% in 1991 to 82.8% in 2021 (P < .001). Termination of pregnancy decreased from 70% in 1991 to 43% (P < .001) in 2021. Of 627 fetuses diagnosed in the first trimester (introduced in 2007), 460 were terminated (73.3%). Since 2007, of 2066 fetuses diagnosed in the second trimester, 880 (42.6%) were terminated, resulting in an odds ratio of 3.6 (95% CI, 2.8-4.6; P < .001) for TOP in the first trimester compared with the second trimester. Postnatal prevalence of major CHDs declined from 0.21% to 0.14% (P < .001). The total incidence (combining prenatal detection of terminated fetuses with postnatal prevalence) of major CHD remained at 0.23% during the study period. Conclusions and Relevance: In this cross-sectional study, the total incidence of major CHD did not change significantly during the 31-year study period. The prenatal detection of major CHD approached 83% in the current era. Postnatal prevalence of major CHD decreased significantly due to early TOPs and intrauterine deaths. The introduction of first trimester screening resulted in a higher termination rate in the first trimester but did not revert the overall decreasing trend of termination for CHDs in general.

Importance of the integrated test in the Down's syndrome screening algorithm.

OBJECTIVE: In the Czech Republic, over 97% of all pregnant women undergo some type of antenatal screening for Down's syndrome. In about 95% of cases with a confirmed fetal chromosomal abnormality, the pregnancy is terminated. The most commonly used test is the first trimester combined test. We investigated the impact of implementing an integrated sequential test to improve the detection of Down's syndrome pregnancies. METHODS: Data on the incidence of congenital defects, number of births, and affected pregnancies terminated are recorded in the National Registry of Congenital Anomalies. Anonymous data on cases of Down's syndrome diagnosed antenatally or postnatally between 2010 and 2015 in one of the large antenatal care centers were analyzed. RESULTS: There were 600 diagnoses of Down's syndrome (5.7 per 1000 births), 90% of which were made antenatally. Of antenatally detected cases, 80% were indicated for diagnostic procedure by multimarker screening results. In the multimarker screen positive group, 75% cases were first trimester positive and 25% second trimester positive (most of these had positive integrated test results). Among Down's syndrome cases indicated for antenatal diagnosis by multimarker screening results 6.25% (n = 26) were first trimester negative, and became positive after integration with the second trimester screening results. CONCLUSIONS: Results from five major Czech antenatal centers confirm that an integrated sequential test would detect 80-85% of Down's syndrome fetuses in the first trimester and at least an extra 5-10% of Down's syndrome pregnancies in the second trimester of pregnancy. These are important data that should be considered in implementing the national antenatal screening program.

SNP array and phenotype correlation shows that FLI1 deletion per se is not responsible for thrombocytopenia development in Jacobsen syndrome.

Jacobsen syndrome (JBS) is a rare chromosomal disorder caused by terminal deletion of the long arm of chromosome 11. We report on four prenatally diagnosed patients with JBS with variable prenatal and postnatal phenotypes and 11q deletions of varying sizes. Precise characterization of the deleted region in three patients was performed by SNP arrays. The severity of both the prenatal and postnatal phenotypes did not correlate with the size of the haploinsufficient region. Despite the large difference in the deletion size (nearly 6 Mb), both of the live-born patients had similar phenotypes corresponding to JBS. However, one of the most prominent features of JBS, thrombocytopenia, was only present in the live-born boy. The girl, who had a significantly longer deletion spanning all four genes suspected of being causative of JBS-related thrombocytopenia (FLI1, ETS1, NFRKB, and JAM3), did not manifest a platelet phenotype. Therefore, our findings do not support the traditional view of deletion size correlation in JBS or the causative role of FLI1, ETS1, NFRKB, and JAM3 deletion per se for the development of disease-related thrombocytopenia.

A case of an epignathus with intracranial extension appearing as a persistently open mouth at 16 weeks and subsequently diagnosed at 20 weeks of gestation.

We report a rare case of oral mass (epignathus) with intracranial extension originally suspected antenatally at 16 weeks' gestation because of a persistent open mouth. Postmortem MRI and pathologic examination of the fetus confirmed an oral teratoma with bilateral ventricular dilatation, corpus callosum agenesis, and a neuroepithelial intracranial cyst. The relevant literature regarding this anomaly is reviewed.