Perinatal management of common neonatal thoracic lesions

Abstract

Esophageal atresia, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, bronchopulmonary malformations and cystic lung diseases are the common neonatal thoracic surgical lesions encountered in practice. The availability of antenatal ultrasonography has lead to these lesions being detected before birth. Antenatal diagnosis can be made with a fair degree of accuracy in tertiary fetal medicine centres. Antenatal intervention is limited in a very few centres in the western world and not being done in India at present. The outcome of these babies with antenatal diagnosis of thoracic lesions has changed in the last decade. Earlier intervention is now possible in cystic lung disease before infectious complication has set in. All these lesions are managed exclusively in well developed neonatal surgery units with excellent outcome in the western world. The present study reviews the antenatal detection, clinical presentation, interventional/surgical procedures [antenatally and postnatally] and outcome of these common neonatal thoracic surgical lesions.