A study on prognosis of surviving cotwin.

It has been suggested that the surviving cotwin and the mother are seriously affected when intrautrine fetal death of one monozygotic twin occurs. Several authors have reported brain damage in the surviving twin coexisting in utero with dead monozygotic cotwin. Most of such instances are monochorionic and show vascular communication between paired twins in the placenta. In a total of 133 pairs of monochorionic twins, death of one twin during pregnancy occurred in 33 cases (24.8%). Of 33 surviving twins, 8 babies suffered from porencephaly, cerebral palsy and other abnormalities. More unfavorable prognosis was recognized when a cotwin died in the latter half of pregnancy, while when a monozygotic cotwin died in the early stage of pregnancy, the surviving twin uneventfully grew to term in most cases.