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Cf and echodens intestines

Question
How many percent of the still unborn babies with CF will show echodense intestines during the 20-week ultrasound?
Answer
Dear questioner,
The finding of hyperechogenic intestines on the prenatal ultrasound can have many causes, however no abnormalities are found afterwards in the majority of these babies. In addition to cystic fibrosis, possible abnormalities such as CMV infections are therefore problems outside the CF context, chromosomal abnormalities, etc. The percentage of babies with cystic fibrosis and the echogenic intestine varies between 1% and 13% depending on the series and the population within which this is checked. It is also known that carrier status for a CF mutation occurs approximately in 5% of children with echogenic intestines.
However, your question is the other way around, namely how many children who were diagnosed with CF after birth had echodense intestine on ultrasound at 20 weeks. There is little information about this. I have found a limited series of data from Canada (Jessula et al 2018) where data on echogenic intestines were available for 106 children with CF: about 1 child in 10 had echodense intestines on the prenatal ultrasound. This is of course a fairly rough estimate given the fact that it is a limited range in a specific country.
The most important thing to remember is that echodense intestines are an non-specific finding that does lead to the exclusion of CF. hopefully this is a sufficient answer to your question.
Best regards,
Kris de Boeck
24.10.2019