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Abstract

The objective of study is the analysis of ultrasound (US) images, clinical perinatal and long-term results in different types of primary and secondary abnormalities of the fetal brain. The article contains ultrasound (US) images and postnatal results in 53 fetuses with brain abnormalities detected after ultrasound anomaly scan. The features of fetuses with brain abnormalities were studied and archived. After receiving data about the postnatal catamnesis, a retrospective detailing of antenatal images was conducted. Adverse general postnatal outcome (GPO) meant perinatal or infant death; adverse clinical postnatal outcome (CPO) meant persistent neurological morbidity. In the studied series various options of US fetal brain anomalies were accompanied by a high frequency of adverse GPO (28/53 or 52.8%), and adverse CPO with severe persistent neurologic morbidity (13/53 or 24.5%). US images and postnatal results in prosencephalic malformations, abnormalities of posterior fossa, destructive brain lesions, callosal agenesis and cortical dysplasia have been present as well as a number of distress-associated and infection-associated brain features as intraventricular hemorrhage, periventricular leukomalacia and cortical necrosis. A number of fetal intracranial changes were observed both in fetuses with infection and severe placental dysfunction. Most of such anomalies had periventricular or subependymal localization, which could associated with universal pathogenetic mechanism of the germinal matrix injury. Secondary changes of fetal brain occurred three times more often than primary, which confirms the opinion about the need of the third trimester pregnancy routine scan. This data would help to improve the quality of prenatal counseling and to select newborns for follow-up monitoring.