Intrauterine fetoscopic closure of myelomeningocele: Clinical case and literature review.

OBJECTIVE: Spina bifida (SB) is a congenital birth defect defined as a failure of the neural tube formation during the embryonic development phase. Fetoscopic repair of SB is a novel treatment technique that allows to close spinal defect early and prevent potential neurological and psychomotor complications. CASE REPORT: We present a case report of a 32-year-old-multigravida whose fetus was diagnosed with lumbosacral myelomeningocele at 23rd week. Fetoscopic closure of MMC was performed at 26 weeks. At 32 weeks, due to premature amniorrhexis and placental abruption, an emergency C-section was performed. Newborn's psychomotor development was within normal limits. CONCLUSION: Although intrauterine treatment has an increased risk of premature labor, placental abruption, prenatal closure is associated with improved postnatal psychomotor development. Prenatal surgery decreases the risk of Arnold-Chiari II malformation development and walking disability. Fetoscopic closure of SB is becoming a choice for treatment with beneficial outcomes for mother and fetus.

Ovarian metastases from breast cancer: A report of 24 cases.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the epidemiological, demographical characteristics and survival outcomes of the patients with ovarian metastases from breast cancer. STUDY DESIGN: Medical records of 24 patients with pathologically confirmed metastases in ovaries treated at two tertiary hospitals between 2000 and 2019 were reviewed retrospectively. Patients' as well as tumor characteristics, and treatment data were collected. Ovarian metastases of breast cancer were documented using a system of analogous to the FIGO classification for ovarian cancer. Survival after primary breast cancer diagnosis and after diagnosis of metastases in ovaries were calculated. Outcomes were compared between the three different procedures bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, total hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, and total hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy with omentectomy. RESULTS: The majority of patients had estrogen receptor positive (87 %) and progesterone receptor positive (91 %), 80 % patients were HER2/neu negative. The majority of patients had primary tumor stage by TNM classification T1 (33 %) and T2 (50 %); node- negative (25 %) and node-positive (75 %); 71 % of patients had no distal metastases in primary breast cancer diagnosis (M0) while 29 % of patients had distant metastases. The median age of primary breast cancer diagnosis was 46.5 ± 10.4 years (range 25-69). The mean time to occurrence of secondary ovarian malignancies after primary breast cancer diagnosis was 62.9 ± 62.8 months (range 0-219). The majority of women underwent adnexectomy (37.5 %) or total hysterectomy with adnexectomy (37.5 %). The mean survival after breast cancer treatment was 72 months, and the mean survival after discovery of ovarian metastases was 25 months. CONCLUSIONS: Our results showed that more radical surgical treatment of metastases to ovaries has no increase of survival among patients. However, it should be noted that this may be affected by different stage of primary disease. Thus, larger and more standardized studies need to be done in order to confirm prognostic features and the choice of surgical volume.