VENTRICULOMEGALY DIAGNOSED BY PRENATAL ULTRASOUND AND MENTAL-DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILDREN

During the last 8 years in our department, fetal ventriculomegaly was diagnosed by prenatal ultrasound in 105 cases. Ventriculomegaly was de tected at 25 +/- 6 weeks of gestation. In 96 of 105 cases follow-up ex aminations have been performed both during pregnancy and after deliver y. In 47 cases termination of pregnancy, late spontaneous abortion or intrauterine death occurred. 49 cases resulted in live births. Of thes e, 28 children could be followed up to the age of 36 months, a few chi ldren even longer. Myelomeningocele was the most frequent cause of ven triculomegaly (17 cases = 61%). Insertion of ventricular shunt systems was performed in 26 children at a median of 21 days of life. Analysis of postnatal development was performed by the Kaufmann Assessment Bat tery for Children, or the Munich Functional Development Test. Correlat ion analysis was performed between parameters of prenatal findings and postnatal development. It could be shown that results of single prena tal ultrasound examinations did not correlate with postnatal developme nt whereas progression of ventriculomegaly was negatively correlated w ith mental development.