Prenatally diagnosed congenital portosystemic shunts

Aim: Congenital portosystemic shunts (CPSS) are rare, congenital malformations that are increasingly often discovered during the fetal period, and for which, the manifestations and evolution are poorly understood. The objective of this review is to describe the phenotype and evolution of forms diagnosed in the antenatal period.

Materials and methods: We performed a systematic review of the literature cited in Pubmed between 1982 and 2016 for CPSS cases diagnosed during the fetal period.

Results: We identified 123 cases. The median age at diagnosis was 25 GA (14–38 weeks GA). Eighty patients had 128 associated congenital anomalies. The congenital abnormalities most frequently associated with antenatal diagnosis of CPSS were congenital cardiac disease (30 cases), intrauterine growth restriction (21 cases), vascular anomalies (14 cases), and trisomy 21 (7 cases). Seventy-five complications were reported in the literature. The most frequent were antenatal hemodynamic abnormalities (27 cases), neonatal cholestasis (11 cases), and hyperammonemia (10 cases). Twenty-nine patients had no complications. The choice of treatment was conservative in 29/56 cases, interventional radiology in 15 cases and surgery in 15 cases (three of the latter after failure of embolization).

Conclusion: From this review, we propose an algorithm for the perinatal management of this congenital abnormality.