The history of fetal therapy.

The Fetal Treatment Center founded by Michael Harrison is credited as the birthplace of fetal surgery. His trainees in pediatric surgery subsequently founded fetal centers throughout the United States. In Europe, the advent of minimally invasive fetal surgical techniques led to the establishment of treatment centers led predominantly by perinatologists. More recently, perinatologists in North America have begun to play a greater role in the field of fetal intervention.Intrauterine transfusion for the treatment of hemolytic disease of the fetus/newborn was the first successful fetal intervention. Although not subjected to the rigors of clinical trials, this treatment has withstood the test of time. Interventions for other fetal disease states such as twin-twin transfusion and repair of fetal myelomeningocele were investigated in animal models followed by randomized clinical trials before widespread adoption. Tracheal occlusion for diaphragmatic hernia is still currently being investigated as the next promising step in fetal intervention.

From monster to twin reversed arterial perfusion: a history of acardiac twins.

A human being born without heart and head, i.e., the acardius/acranius malformation, has been described since antiquity. Superstition and fear made it a mystical disorder, a sign of God's wrath. The inquisition ruled that acranic infants should not be baptized and located the soul in the brain. Acardia was not associated with twin gestation until the reports of Mery in 1720 and Winslow in 1740. In 1850, Meckel identified the pathogenetic mechanism as reversed perfusion due to large arterio-arterial and veno-venous anastomoses; he believed the heart would fail to develop or arrest during development, and the acardiac fetus would be maintained by arterial perfusion from the pump twin. In 1859, Claudius articulated that after normal initial development, the heart degenerates when reversed flow in the aorta leads to thrombosis. Today, it is assumed that both mechanisms may exist. With the advent of prenatal ultrasound diagnosis and radiofrequency ablation of the acardiac twin's circulation, it became possible to save the pump twin.