Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Search research articles

Related Experiment Videos

Acardiac twin with preserved brain.

B L Petersen¹, H Broholm, L Skibsted

¹Department of Pathology, University Hospital, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark. rh02875@rh.dk

Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy

|June 16, 2001

Summary

Fatal acardiac syndrome, a rare complication of monochorionic twins, involves one twin supplying circulation to both. This case details an acardiac twin with unusual near-normal brain development and external appearance.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Multiple Extracranial Metastases from Primary Gliosarcoma in a Patient with Two Previous Different Primary Cancers.

Case reports in oncological medicine·2019

Same author

Birth weight variants are associated with variable fetal intrauterine growth from 20 weeks of gestation.

Scientific reports·2018

Same author

Long-term effects of prenatal progesterone exposure: neurophysiological development and hospital admissions in twins up to 8 years of age.

Ultrasound in obstetrics & gynecology : the official journal of the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology·2016

Same author

Effect of nitric oxide on spinal evoked potentials and survival rate in rats with decompression sickness.

Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985)·2014

Same author

Outcome of fetuses with short femur length detected at second-trimester anomaly scan: a national survey.

Ultrasound in obstetrics & gynecology : the official journal of the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology·2013

Same author

Pathophysiology of shunt dysfunction in shunt treated hydrocephalus.

Acta neurochirurgica·2013

Area of Science:

Perinatology
Maternal-Fetal Medicine
Developmental Biology

Background:

Fatal acardiac syndrome is a rare complication of monochorionic twinning, occurring in approximately 1 in 35,000 births.
It results from placental arterioarterial and venovenous anastomoses, causing circulatory imbalance between twins.
The donor twin sustains circulation for both itself and the recipient acardiac twin, which typically exhibits severe upper body anomalies.

Observation:

This report describes a twin pregnancy initially misdiagnosed via ultrasound, where the recipient twin appeared deceased.
In the third trimester, this twin presented as an edematous acardiac twin.
Notably, this acardiac twin lacked peripheral reduction defects and possessed a nearly normally developed brain.

Findings:

A unique case of a recipient acardiac twin with a near-normal external appearance and almost normally developed brain is presented.
This acardiac twin was nourished by a surviving twin brother.
Such a presentation, particularly the near-normal brain development, has not been previously documented in medical literature.

Implications:

This case expands the known spectrum of acardiac twin malformations.
It highlights the importance of serial ultrasound monitoring in monochorionic twins.
Further research into the developmental pathways and neurological potential of acardiac twins may be warranted.

Related Experiment Videos