Abstract
Objective: To analyze the proportion of congenital anomalies and chromosomal aberrations in fetuses after assisted reproduction. To analyze the frequency of assisted reproduction cases among 11 different diagnoses detectable during prenatal diagnostics.
Design: Retrospective epidemiological analysis of data on prenatal diagnostics of congenital anomalies and chromosomal aberrations in the Czech Republic between 1998 and 2015. Methods: We analyzed the cases of positive prenatal diagnostics from selected time period and calculated the frequency of assisted reproduction cases - for the whole cohort and also specifically for following diagnoses: anencephaly, spina bifida, encephalocele, congenital hydrocephaly, diaphragmatic hernia, omphalocele, gastroschisis, Down syndrome, Edwards syndrome, Patau syndrome and Turner syndrome.
Results: During the selected time period there were 20 399 cases of positive prenatal diagnostics of congenital anomalies and chromosomal aberrations in the Czech Republic. Among those - there were 719 cases (3.5% of all cases) in assisted reproduction pregnancies.
Among the selected diagnoses - we identified distinctive differences in frequency of assisted reproduction cases. Conclusion: The frequencies of positively (prenatally) diagnosed cases in assisted reproduction for particular selected diagnoses were very heterogenic - even for the diagnoses depending on similar diagnostic method (structural anomalies, chromosomal aberrations).
Using available data - we can conclude that it is probable that the (expected) higher frequency of congenital anomalies in the assisted reproduction group is not caused by more targeted/detailed prenatal diagnostics.