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Hyperechogenic bowel
- Question
- Dear expert team,
I am in the 31th week of pregnancy and our baby has been diagnosed to have a mild hyperechogenic bowel. Furthermore, the bowel is slightly extended. The baby gains weight well (at the moment about 2000g) and all the other values are also good. How high is the probability that the baby suffers from CF?
Many thanks! - Answer
- Dear questioner,
at first I want to apologize that you had to wait so long for our answer. I beg you to be lenient as your question is not so easy to answer. You asked the question about the frequency of CF in case of the ultrasound finding of a hyperechogenic bowel in the foetus. I did some research and also asked other experts. Unfortunately it is not possible to answer your question concretely, as we were not able to find any data. From the literature one gets the information that a hyperechogenic bowel is diagnosed in 1% of all pregnancies and that this finding can give a hint at several illnesses, one of those as is known is CF. How often CF is then indeed diagnosed among those, remained unanswered.
The hyperechogenic bowel is an ultrasonic sign, which can occur at several relevant illnesses for the prenatal period, among those also CF has to be mentioned. According to the authors (Ch. Sohn, S. Tarcanli, W. Holzgreve) of the book “Ultrasound in gynaecology and obstetrics” (German book, Thieme publishing company), targeted organ diagnostic s with ultrasound has to be initiated in case of the finding of a hyperechogenic bowel. In case of missing further hints the parents should be informed about the possibility of a DNA-analysis in order to clarify CF. A hyperechogenic bowel is therefore an indication for the performance of prenatal diagnostics, admitted that even before the diagnostic procedure is done, clarity about the consequences of the results can be derived from the parents. We consider it very important to have a human-genetic and gynaecological counselling and probably also a detailed conversation with a CF specialist. It should be clarified, if the parents of the child are carrier or suffer from CF themselves, which we could not conclude from your question.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Christina Smaczny
- 02.07.2012
