Intrauterine repair of experimental surgically created dysraphism.

The paralysis seen in children with myelomeningocele has been attributed to congenital myelodysplasia. Clinical and pathological data, however, suggest that the paralysis may be due in part to a spinal cord injury caused by exposure of the neural tube to the intrauterine environment. This possibility has been supported by experimental data obtained using a fetal rat model of surgically created dysraphism. In this paper, we report the results of intrauterine treatment of experimental dysraphism in the fetal rat and the fetal pig. These studies confirm our earlier findings and suggest that both physical trauma and toxic injury may contribute to the spinal cord injury.