The assessment of early and late gestational termination cases

Abstract

Objective We aimed to investigate the characteristics of early and late gestational termination cases by evaluating the cases underwent gestational termination in our clinic. Methods All pregnant women who had singleton pregnancy and underwent gestational termination due to fetal indications between January 2017 and December 2019 were included in the study. Results A total of 341 cases, of which 263 were with early gestational termination (Group 1) and 73 were with late gestational termination (Group 2) were included in the study. No difference was observed between the demographic characteristics of the groups. The ultrasonographic structural anomaly was observed in 273 (80.1%) of 341 cases and no structural anomaly was observed in 68 (19.9%) cases. Of the cases with structural anomaly, 200 (73%) had isolated system anomaly and 73 (26.7%) had multiple system anomaly. Karyotype analysis was performed in 68% of the cases, and chromosomal anomaly was found in 52.6% of them. Among the cases with normal karyotype analysis results, 22 cases had single gene disorder, of which mostly had thalassemia. While the incidence of structural anomaly was significantly high in the late termination cases (91% vs. 76.8%), the incidence of isolated cardiovascular anomaly was significantly high in the late termination cases similarly (37.5% vs. 13.8%). The autopsy was performed on 16.7% of the cases after termination and the findings were consistent with the prenatal ultrasonographic results in 86% of the cases, and additional findings were found in 22.4% of the cases in the autopsy. Conclusion When the late gestational terminations performed in our clinic are compared to the early gestational terminations, we believe that conducting ultrasonographic anomaly screening to all pregnant women including echocardiography even at a less rate, and also making screening programs in the early gestational periods such as aneuploidy screening easily accessible for all pregnant women may help to maintain maternal health by decreasing the rates of the cases with late gestational