Maternal manifestation of Ballantyne's syndrome occurring concomitantly with the development of fetal congenital mesoblastic nephroma

Abstract

Various fetal or placental disorders cause Ballantyne's (mirror) syndrome. For the first time, we report a maternal manifestation of Ballantyne's syndrome occurring concomitantly with the development of fetal congenital mesoblastic nephroma (CMN). In a pregnant woman with a CMN fetus, lung edema, hypertension, hyperthyroidism, and high serum human chorionic gonadotrophin level occurred, all of which characterize maternal manifestation of Ballantyne's syndrome. The fetus and placenta were devoid of 'edema', lacking 'triple edema', and thus this condition was not diagnosed as Ballantyne's syndrome; however, we considered this condition as the maternal manifestation of Ballantyne's syndrome. We performed emergent cesarean section at 28 weeks. Delivery acutely ameliorated maternal symptoms. Tumor was resected and was confirmed as CMN. Maternal manifestations of Ballantyne's syndrome, such as lung edema and hypertension, can occur in a mother with fetal CMN even without fetal and/or placental edema. The clinical course of this patient may suggest an etiology of Ballantyne's syndrome.

Keywords: Ballantyne's syndrome; human chorionic gonadotrophin; mesoblastic nephroma; mirror syndrome; pre-eclampsia.