Background: Antenatal hydronephrosis (ANH) is the most common congenital condition detected by prenatal ultrasound studes.All cases of ANH should be investigated with post-natal ultrasound scan.ANH does not necessarily imply obstruction, nor give any indication of function of the kidney.Antero posterior diameter (APD) of the pelvis at the level of renal hilum is the most studied parameter for assessing ANH in utero Aim: The purpose of our review was to analyze the trends in the etiology, outcome and nature of the clinical course of the ANH cases presented to us from 2013 March to 2016 March.Materials and methods: A retrospective analytical study was performed on all the newly detected cases of antenatally detected hydronephrosis who presented to the Department of Paediatric and Neonatal surgery during the study period.Two hundred and sixty four cases of ANH were included in the study.Patients with ANH who were on follow-up during the study period, who presented before March 2013 is excluded from the study.Children of age more than three years who received treatment, and were on follow-up at other centers were excluded, due to the lack of exact clinical course details.The data collected included sex, severity of ANH, incidence of postnatal pathology, clinical course and the outcome.Results: 69.7 % of the patients were boys.68% of the cases had mild AHN, and only 4% had an APD of more than 30mm.Majority of the babies with ANH had only transient hydronephrosis (63.8%) followed by pelvi-uretreric junction (PUJ) obstruction (18%).Surgical interventions were required for 9% of patients during the study period.Conclusion: AHN is contributed by various pathological and transient factors, hence the outcome in each patient may vary.Repeated USG in 4-6 weeks is the key to predict the outcome.A significant percentage of patients with ANH will have resolved renal pelvis dilatation postnatally.Reduced differential kidney function, abrupt decrease in baseline function or progressive increase in APD may indicate the need for early surgical intervention.
Simon et al. (Wed,) studied this question.
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