Efficacy of prenatal ultrasonography in diagnosing urogenital developmental anomalies in newborns

BACKGROUND Showing a prevalence rate of 0.5-0.8%, urogenital malformations discovered in newborns is regarded relatively common. The aim of this study is to examine the efficacy of ultrasound diagnostics in detecting developmental disorders in the urogenital system. METHODS We have processed the prenatal sonographic and postnatal clinical details of 175 urogenital abnormalities in 140 newborns delivered with urogenital malformation according to EUROCAT recommendations over a 5-year period between 2006 and 2010. The patients were divided into three groups; Group 1: prenatal sonography and postnatal examinations yielded fully identical results. Group 2: postnatally detected urogenital changes were partially discovered in prenatal investigations. Group 3: prenatal sonography failed to detect the urogenital malformation identified in postnatal examinations. Urogenital changes representing part of certain multiple disorders associated with chromosomal aberration were investigated separately. RESULTS Prenatal sonographic diagnosis and postnatal results completely coincided in 45%, i.e. 63/140 of cases in newborns delivered with urogenital developmental disorders. In 34/140 cases (24%), discovery was partial, while in 43/140 patients (31%), no urogenital malformation was detected prenatally. No associated malformations were observed in 108 cases, in 57 of which (53%), the results of prenatal ultrasonography and postnatal examinations showed complete coincidence. Prenatally, urogenital changes were found in 11 patients (10%), whereas no urogenital disorders were diagnosed in 40 cases (37%) by investigations prior to birth. Urogenital disorders were found to represent part of multiple malformations in a total of 28 cases as follows: prenatal diagnosis of urogenital malformation and the findings of postnatal examinations completely coincided in three patients (11%), partial coincidence was found in 22 newborns (79%) and in another three patients (11%), the disorder was not detected prenatally. In four newborns, chromosomal aberration was associated with the urogenital disorder; 45,X karyotype was detected in two patients, trisomy 9 and trisomy 18 were found in one case each. CONCLUSION In approximately half of the cases, postnatally diagnosed abnormalities coincided with the prenatally discovered fetal urogenital developmental disorders. The results have confirmed that ultrasonography plays an important role in diagnosing urogenital malformations but it fails to detect all of the urogenital developmental abnormalities.