[Postmortem examination of congenital developmental defects in children and their role in thanatogenesis]

Abstract

The authors examined case records and autopsy protocols of 6173 dead children aged 0-15 years made in the regional pediatric dissecting room over the past 15 years. The incidence of congenital malformations (CM) in the dead children was found to range from 22.5 to 29.2%. The central nervous and cardiovascular systems, and gastrointestinal tract proved to be the most affected organs, some increase in the incidence of CM observed in the last years occurring by higher affliction rates of just these systems. As for the proportion of multiple CM (MCM) in the total number of malformations, it accounts for 30.4%. The trends in the incidence of MCM have not substantially changed among dead children over the past 15 years. The contribution of CM as a cause of death among children has also remained unchanged. In 77.5% of the cases, CM is regarded as the major abnormality in the autopsy diagnosis. Children with CM predominantly die in neonatal (up to 29.2%), perinatal (up to 16.2%) periods, and, in general, in infancy (greater than 90%).