[Genito-urinary malformations in a regional survey in Emilia Romagna].

In a multicentric survey carried out in Emilia Romagna area on congenital malformations 1914 babies out of 103484 babies born from 1978-1984 were discovered to have malformations. Out of these malformations cases 17% were found to be affected by genitourinary tract anomalies (GU) divided as follows: 235 genital malformations and 91 urinary tract anomalies. All these GU patients were diagnosed within the first week of life. Genital malformations: Genital malformations are mainly constituted by hypospadias, found in 214 out of 235 babies. Among these babies, 72% have first degree hypospadias, 22.4% have second degree, and only ten babies were found with third degree hypospadias. In this study 4.1 out of 1000 male newborns have been found affected by hypospadias, in agreement with the results of other researches whose values were between 2% and 4.4%. Many different variables (such as parental age, exposure to smoke, alcohol, RX-ray before pregnancy, low birth weight, early age at menarche, exposure to progestins for threatened abortion, shorter gestation) have been considered in order to verify their correlation with the hypospadias, comparing with control group. Among these the most statistically significant are the exposure to progestins for threatened abortion (p less than 0.05), early age at menarche (p less than 0.001) and the intrauterine growth retardation (p less than 0.001). Also these results agree with the previous studies. Urinary tract anomalies: the 93 babies with kidney and-or urinary tract malformations out of 103484 newborns represent the 8.9%. The diagnoses were made or suspected (and later confirmed) during the first week of life.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)