The technical and ethical framework of fetal therapy: past and current advances

Fetal therapy, a burgeoning field that encompasses prenatal surgical and medical interventions for congenital diseases, enables minimally invasive strategies of pharmacologic drug treatment before birth. We provide an overview of fetal drug delivery, its connections to current clinical practices, and key aspects for the clinician and researcher developing these approaches.

A growing number of preclinical and clinical studies have demonstrated the success of nanomedicine for fetal applications, which we present here. In addition, we discuss the feasibility of fetal drug delivery from technical and ethical standpoints.

Fetal drug delivery still has many areas that require further investigation to understand its full implications. This review provides insights into what is currently known about the feasibility of fetal drug delivery and highlights important ethical considerations as fetal drug delivery continues to improve and advance toward clinical translation.