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Video Q&A about Fetal Surgery and Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia Event Date: October 26, 2017 | 10:30am - 11:00am CT
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@informed

Why don't you do FETO for all CDH cases? Seems like only the very severe qualify? Is this because the assumption is that their chance of survival is already low and this is a last ditch effort?

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Replies to "Why don't you do FETO for all CDH cases? Seems like only the very severe qualify?..."
Colleen Young, Connect Director | @colleenyoung | Oct 27, 2017

Dr. Ruano writes: "Excellent question. The reason is that we need to balance the risks and benefits of fetal intervention. And also we need to consider the natural history of the disease.
I classify CDH in 4 categories: extremely severe (extremely rare and almost lethal), severe, moderate and mild.
The mild forms have an extremely benign course (survival rate of more than 90%) and don’t need FETO.
The extremely severe CDH is almost lethal without FETO, and will become severe forms after FETO at 26-30 weeks with still 50% survival rate after FETO.
The severe forms will become moderate CDH after FETO and will have a survival rate of 80%.
We are investigating if babies with moderate CDH will benefit from FETO by reducing the morbidity."

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