Audit of Congenital Fetal Anomalies as Seen on Ultrasound Scan in a Teaching Hospital in Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria

Abstract

Birth defects are becoming a major health problem in this part of the world. Early diagnosis helps to reduce the burden of perinatal mortality by availing practitioners and patients the option of abortion or prenatal intervention. This study seeks to evaluate the contribution of routine antenatal ultrasonography performed in this centre, to prenatal diagnosis of fetal structural defects.
All pregnant women who were referred to the radiology department for obstetric scan from January 2000 to December 2007 were included in this study.
The mean age of the patients was 26.2 +/- 5 years, while the mean gestational age at examination was 28 weeks +/- 2 weeks. There were 8753 patients, and 64 congenital anomalies were correctly diagnosed. Polyhydramnious was associated with the majority (48.44%) of congenital anomalies diagnosed, while 12.5% had oligohydramnious. Twenty five (39.06%) of them had normal amniotic fluid volume. Neural tube defects were the commonest type of anomalies, followed by gastrointestinal and renal defects. Most facial, chromosomal and cardiac defects were missed.
To improve the diagnosing ability for fetal congenital anomalies, sonologists must be properly trained and the number of patients seen per clinic must be restricted to that which the sonologist would conveniently cope with. Early antenatal scan will improve the detection rate.

Keywords: Congenital anomalies, Ultrasound scan, Teaching hospital, Nigeria

Nigerian Journal of Health and Biomedical Sciences Vol. 7 (2) 2008: pp. 61-65