BACKGROUND Due to current medical improvements, more women with cardiac disease are being operated during pregnancy. Fetal loss has been found to be significant between 9-30% of them and the surgery is supposed to be done maximal in the first trimester. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to report our experience with urgent cardiopulmonary bypass carried out in early pregnancy and to analyz...

OBJECTIVE Fetal surgery to improve lung growth comprises tracheal occlusion in selected 'high-risk' fetuses with congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH). Sonographically measured fetal lung-to-head ratio (LHR) is utilized to recruit candidates for fetal surgery. This study provides a meta-analysis of the evidence regarding the prognostic use of lung-to-head ratio measurements in fetal CDH. METH...

Over the past 40 years, medical and surgical management of congenital heart disease has advanced considerably. However, substantial room for improvement remains certain lesions that have high rates morbidity mortality. Although most cardiac conditions are well tolerated during fetal development, abnormalities progress in severity over course gestation impair development other organs, such as lu...

Myelomeningocele (MMC) is the most frequent congenital defect of the central nervous system for which there is no satisfactory alternative to postnatal treatment. On the contrary prenatal MMC surgery is conducting before birth and is aimed at protecting from Chiari II malformation. The main goal of fetal MMC repair is to improve development and life quality of children with Chiari II malformati...

Infective Endocarditis (IE) during pregnancy is a rare but grave condition. The diagnosis and management can be challenging, especially when the pregnant patient warrants a cardiac operation under cardiopulmonary bypass. The present article describes IE during pregnancy based on a series of published case reports in the literature. IE during pregnancy often causes embolic events and mycotic ane...

Myelomeningocele (MMC), one of the most common congenital malformations, can result in severe lifelong disabilities,including paraplegia, hydrocephalus, Chiari II malformation(CM-II), incontinence, sexual dysfunction, skeletal deformations and mental impairment. MMC was the first nonlethal anomaly to be treated by fetal surgery. Experimental and clinical evidence suggests that the primary cause...

OBJECTIVES The objective of our study is to retrospectively analyze a single-centre series of antenatally detected pulmonary malformations (PM) and to evaluate their postnatal outcome. MATERIALS AND METHODS We retrospectively reviewed all prenatally diagnosed PM patients referred to our Centre in the period between January 1999 and December 2014. All cases were diagnosed by one of our Materna...

Introduction-Cardiopathy still remains a prominent cause of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. Pregnancy increases cardiovascular stress and can cause an asymptomatic woman with heart disease to become symptomatic. Definite data in heart surgery with extracorporeal circulation during pregnancy are limited. This report analyzes our experience in this area. Methods-Thirteen women who und...