Congenital anterior abdominal wall defects in England and Wales 1987-93: retrospective analysis of OPCS data

Abstract

Objectives-Analysis of incidence and characteristics ofcongenital abdominal wall defects, with special reference to the differences between the incidence of gastroschisis and exomphalos (omphalocele).Design-Retrospective analysis using data from the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (recoded to differentiate exomphalos and gastroschisis) and the National Congenital Malformation Notification Scheme.

Recreational Drug Use: A Major Risk Factor for Gastroschisis?

“…A north-south gradient in prevalence across England and Wales has been suggested by Rankin and colleagues (1999) from the Northern Congenital Abnormality Survey. As this gradient has been observed for both gastroschisis and exomphalos cases differential reporting rates and the wide variation in regional uptake of terminations of pregnancy across the country could account, at least partially, for these differences (Tan et al 1996). Tan et al (1996) highlighted the problems of underreporting to the national notification system for congenital anomalies (NCAS) for England and Wales at the Office of National Statistics (ONS) and a recent study has shown that the level of underreporting may be as high as 40% (Boyd et al 2005).…”

“…The median gestational age at delivery of gastroschisis cases is reported to be around 37 weeks (Tan et al 1996), (Dillon and Renwick, 1995), (Adra et al 1996), (Torfs et al 1994). Policies concerning the optimal timing of delivery for gastroschisis cases vary.…”

“…1993), (Tan et al 1996), (Nichols et al 1997), (Roeper et al Introduction -Abdominal Wall Defects These studies encompass much of Europe, North America and Australia. An early report of the increased prevalence was from Sweden (Lindham, 1981) where there was a significant increase from 0.4 per 10,000 total births in 1965 to 1.11 per 10,000 total births in 1976, with a peak prevalence of 1.72 per 10,000 total births recorded in 1973.…”

“…There are systems that collect live birth anomaly data alone (Egenaes and Bjerkedal, 1982); (Martinez-Frias et al 1984), some collect live and stillbirths (Bugge and Hauge, 1983) (Tan et al 1996); (Roeper et al 1987) while others collect all antenatally and postnatally diagnosed cases resulting in late fetal loss (> 20 weeks gestation) or termination of pregnancy, stillbirths and live births (EUROCAT, 2002). In addition international comparisons are complicated by the definition of stillborn infants that can vary from 20 to 28 weeks gestation, thereby affecting the size of the denominator and could, therefore, provide part of the explanation for the observed differences.…”

Prenatally diagnosed fetal omphalocele at 11 week gestation — a case report

“…With omphalocele, the intraabdominal viscera herniates into the base of the umbilical cord and the herniated viscera is covered by the peritoneum and amnion. The incidence of omphalocele reported in the literature varies considerably, ranging from one in 4000 to 5000 live births [2][3][4][5]. Omphalocele is known to be a part of various anomaly syndromes, such as Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, pentalogy of Cantrell, and omphalocele exstrophy imperforate anus spinal defects syndrome [6][7][8].…”