A Study on The Incidence of Neural Tube Defects in A Tertiary Care Hospital Over A Period of Five Years
Introduction: Several congenital malformations affect developing fetuses, among which Neural tube defect (NTD) is most common. Folic acid supplementation brought decline in the incidence of NTDs. The present study aims at finding the incidence of NTDs in a tertiary care hospital and compares the...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
JCDR Research and Publications Private Limited
2015-07-01
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| Series: | Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://jcdr.net/articles/PDF/6190/14815_CE[Ra1]_F(AK)_PF1(PAK)_PFA(AK)_PF2(PAG).pdf |
| Summary: | Introduction: Several congenital malformations affect
developing fetuses, among which Neural tube defect (NTD) is
most common. Folic acid supplementation brought decline in
the incidence of NTDs. The present study aims at finding the
incidence of NTDs in a tertiary care hospital and compares the
results with the similar Indian studies published earlier.
Materials and Methods: The study was done at Chettinad
Hospital & Research Institute (CHRI), Kelambakkam. The total
number of deliveries was recorded for a period of five years
from 2009 to 2013. Fetuses which were still born with neural
defect were collected and observed in detail externally for the
sex, type of NTD and other associated anomalies. Indian studies
published between 1987 and 2014 reporting the incidence of
NTDs among the births occurred were retrieved from the Internet
and their various observations were used for comparison.
Results: The number of deliveries conducted between 2009
and 2013 at CHRI was 3220. Of these, babies born with NTDs
were nine (5 males and 4 females). The incidence of fetuses
with meroanencephaly, holoanencephaly, craniorachischisis,
encephalocele and myelocele were 0.62, 0.62, 0.93, 0.31 and
0.31 per 1000 births respectively. Overall incidence of NTDs in
the present study was 2.79/1000 births. Fetuses with NTDs also
had the following anomalies – Club foot, cleft lip and palate and
exomphalos.
Conclusion: Comparing the results with the previous studies it
is clearly evident that the incidence of NTDs have significantly
reduced from 11.42/1000 births to 2.79/1000 births. In most of
the previous studies NTDs had a female preponderance whereas
present study has a male preponderance.In older studies, spina
bifida was the most common NTDs followed by anencephaly.
But in the present study anencephaly was the common NTD
than spina bifida. Incidence of NTDs has reduced due to various
reasons like prenatal screening for fetal anomalies and folic acid
supplementation. |
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| ISSN: | 2249-782X 0973-709X |