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Selective survival of only the healthy fetus following prenatal diagnosis of thalassaemia major in binovular twin gestation |
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| Authors: | Aris Antsaklis John Politis Costas Karagiannopoulos Dionysios Kaskarelis Photini Karababa John Panourgias Marina Boussiou Dimitris Loukopoulos |
| Institution: | 1. 1st Dept. of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Athens, Meadical School, ‘Alexandra’ Maternity Hospital, Athens, Greece;2. Unit for the prevention of Thalassaemia, Ministry of Health, ‘Laikon’ General Hospital, Athens II 527, Greece;3. 1st Dept. of Medicine, University of Athens Medical School, ‘Laikon’ General Hospital, Athens 11 527, Greece |
| Abstract: | Selective feticide is the procedure of choice when, in twin binovular pregnancy, only one of the fetuses is shown to be affected. As the probabilities for this condition are almost 1:2 when the genetic disease is due to homozygosity for two autosomal recessive genes, the problem is expected to occur frequently among the ever increasing number of couples seeking prenatal diagnosis of thalassaemia and the haemoglobinopathies. The present report is the first case of this condition and the ninth in the overall medical literature. |
| Keywords: | Thalassaemia major Prenatal diagnosis Twin pregnancy Selective feticide |