Predicting concordance of biochemical lung maturity in the preterm twin gestation

Concordance of the Risk of Neonatal Respiratory Morbidity Assessed by Quantitative Ultrasound Lung Texture Analysis in Fetuses of Twin Pregnancies

“…Regarding gestational age and chorionicity, Mackenzie performed amniocentesis in 92 pairs of diamniotic twins and found that at extremes of gestational age (28, 29, 36 and 37 weeks), twins were 100% concordant in lung status, while lung concordance was signi cantly lower in twins of 33-35.9 weeks, and even lower at 30-32.9 weeks. The in uence of chorionicity, estimated fetal weight discordance and fetal gender concordance were not predictive of lung maturity 22 . In a study including 42 pairs of twins, Leveno et al reported a high correlation between lecithin/sphingomyelin (L/S) ratios between twins A and B which was not related to birth order, infant sex, birthweight discordance, or zygosity 23 .…”

“…The main strength of this study is rst, the fact that a non-invasive technique was used to evaluate the individualized risk for NRM for each twin; and secondly, our study included a larger number of pairs than the studies by Leveno et al 23 , Mackenzie 22 and Winn et al 24 , who included no more than 92 pairs of twins. However, some limitations are of note: respiratory morbidity was not clinically addressed immediately after the test.…”