Why the study?
Right ventricular outflow tract anomalies are typical in monochorionic twins with twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, but long-term postnatal cardiological outcomes and prenatal predictors of congenital heart disease after fetoscopic laser surgery required evaluation.
What is the long-term postnatal incidence of congenital heart disease in monochorionic twin pregnancies complicated by TTTS and RVOTAs treated with fetoscopic laser surgery?
What is the long-term postnatal incidence of congenital heart disease in monochorionic twin pregnancies complicated by TTTS and RVOTAs treated with fetoscopic laser surgery?
Despite treatment with fetoscopic laser surgery, the majority (70.8%) of monochorionic twins with TTTS and prenatal RVOTAs develop congenital heart disease requiring long-term postnatal cardiological follow-up.
Right ventricular outflow tract anomalies (RVOTAs), such as pulmonary stenosis (PS), pulmonary atresia (PA), and pulmonary insufficiency (PI), are typical cardiac anomalies in monochorionic twins, and they are complicated by twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS). The aim of this study was to conduct a long-term postnatal cardiological evaluation of prenatal RVOTAs in monochorionic diamniotic twin pregnancies complicated by TTTS and treated with fetoscopic laser surgery (FLS) and to analyze possible prenatal predictors of congenital heart disease (CHD). Prenatal RVOTAs were retrospectively retrieved from all TTTS cases treated with FLS in our unit between 2009 and 2019. Twenty-eight prenatal cases of RVOTAs (16 PI, 10 PS, 2 PA) were observed out of 335 cases of TTTS. Four cases did not reach the postnatal period. CHD was present in 17 of the remaining 24 cases (70.8%), with 10 being severe (58.8%; 10/17); nine cases of PS required balloon valvuloplasty, and one case required biventricular non-compaction cardiomyopathy. The risk of major CHD increased with prenatal evidence of PS and decreased with the gestational age at the time of TTTS and with the prenatal normalization of blood flow across the pulmonary valve. Despite treatment with FLS, the majority of monochorionic diamniotic twin pregnancies complicated by TTTS with prenatal RVOTAs had CHD at long-term follow-up.
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Faiola et al. (2023) studied this question.
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