The role of the pediatric surgeon in the perinatal multidisciplinary team.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: The pediatric surgeons' understanding of the etiology of many prenatally diagnosed surgical conditions has grown significantly in recent years. The impact of prenatal pediatric surgical consultation on the perinatal course has not been explored extensively. The aim of this study was to explore the pediatric surgeon's role as a team member on the management and outcome of prenatally diagnosed surgical congenital anomalies.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: A retrospective study was performed of all pregnant women diagnosed at our institution by antenatal ultrasound as having a fetus with congenital anomalies. The pediatric surgeon's role in decisions on the termination of pregnancy, IN UTERO intervention, or an altered mode or timing of delivery was studied. Patients were divided according to prenatal decisions into 5 groups; group one included those who had nonaggressive obstetric management, groups two and three included pregnancies where the mode or time of delivery was changed, group four consisted of patients who underwent amniocentesis for karyotype analysis and group five had a termination of pregnancy.

RESULTS: There were 406 fetuses diagnosed with congenital anomalies out 20 995 pregnancies. The incidence of congenital anomalies was 1.93 %. The total number of surgical anomaly cases was 234/400 (58.5 %). The pediatric surgeon was the team leader for the management and counseling of parents in 184 out of 227 cases (82.4 %) in group one, two (0.85 %) and 10 (4.3 %) patients in groups 2 and 3, respectively. The pediatric surgeon was the main team member who took the decision in groups 4 and 5. Eighty-three out of 400 cases (35.5 %) had amniocentesis. Although termination of pregnancy in 26/83 (31.3 %) or an altered mode or time of delivery was the outcome for group four; this was not related to the results of the test. Twenty-six pregnancies (11 %) were terminated in group five. The pregnancy terminations included fetuses with Potter's and VATER syndrome, multiple congenital anomalies and conjoined twins.

CONCLUSION: The pediatric surgeon should be a member of the perinatal multidisciplinary team. Prenatal pediatric surgical consultations have a significant impact on the perinatal management of a fetus with congenital anomalies by providing obstetric colleagues and families with valuable information into the surgical management of anomalies.