Best practice guidelines: fetal surgery

Fetal intervention encompasses a range of procedures on the fetus with congenital structural anomalies, whilst still on the placental circulation. The concept of fetal surgery was conceived in order to prevent fetal or early postnatal death, or to prevent permanent irreversible organ damage. The benefit of these procedures has to be balanced with risks to both the mother and the fetus. Open fetal surgery, more commonly conducted in North American centres, involves open surgery to the uterus in order to operate on the fetus. Fetal intervention centres in Europe more commonly use minimally invasive fetoscopic surgery. This paper elaborates on the various strategies used in dealing with anomalies of different organ systems of the fetus.