[Progress in the prenatal treatment and anesthetic considerations for fetal surgery]

Abstract

Recent advances in prenatal diagnosis have made fetal surgery as a possible treatment for a wide variety of fetal diseases. Fetal surgeries consist of minimally invasive fetal surgery such as ultrasound guided procedure and fetoscopic surgery, open fetal surgery, and ex-utero intrapartum treatment. Effectiveness of these fetal surgeries has been discussed and proved to be effective for some diseases. If a fetal surgery is planned, an anesthesiologist is required to offer optimal anesthesia both for mother and fetus. For this purpose, anesthesiologists are supposed to know outlines of the fetal treatment in addition to pediatric and obstetric anesthesia, as a member of multidisciplinary team. In this review, outlines of fetal treatment will be introduced and anesthetic considerations for fetal surgeries will be discussed.