Impact of prenatal diagnosis on the management and early outcome of critical duct-dependent cardiac lesions.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study was to compare the preoperative management and outcome of neonates with duct-dependent critical CHD with fetal versus postnatal diagnosis.

METHODS

Patients referred with CHD to our centre from January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2010 were enrolled prospectively. Live births with a critical form of CHD, a gestational age ⩾36 weeks and a weight ⩾2 kg at birth, and the intention-to-treat were included in this sub-study. Excluded were neonates with lethal non-cardiac and/or genetic anomalies.

RESULTS

In total, 129, 63 fetal and 66 postnatal, cases met the study inclusion criteria. All had received appropriate antenatal care, including a routine fetal anatomy scan. Both cohorts were comparable in weight, gestational age, and APGAR scores at birth. Unlike the postnatal cases, there were no deaths (0/63 versus 5/66; p=0.06) and no cardiac arrests (0/63 versus 9/63; p=0.003) before surgery or catheter intervention in those cases with a prenatal diagnosis of critical CHD. Moreover, newborns with fetal diagnoses were admitted earlier (median 0 (range 0-3) versus 2 (0-25) days; p<0.001) and were less likely to require preoperative ventilation (19/63 versus 31/61, p=0.03) and vasoactive medication (4/63 versus 15/61, p=0.006) than the postnatal cases.

CONCLUSIONS

Prenatal diagnosis of critical CHD in this study was associated with significantly shorter time intervals from birth to neonatal admission and the absence of life-threatening or fatal preoperative cardiac events. Increased efforts should be made to improve rates of prenatal diagnosis.