Application of KANET in special cases: Part I

Abstract

The detection of neurological impairment during fetal life has been a great challenge in perinatal medicine for many years. Evolution of ultrasound technology has allowed a more detailed examination of the fetal nervous system and earlier detection of central nervous system (CNS) abnormalities. However, overdiagnosis of CNS malformations or variations can be quite confusing from time to time, as we cannot always be sure how these may affect the fetus and as a result we cannot always advise adequately the parents of the affected fetuses about the prognosis. Defining normal and abnormal fetal neurological function in utero in order to better predict which fetuses are at risk for adverse neurological outcome could assist with the evaluation of the fetal outcome. Four-dimensional (4D) ultrasound has been used for the assessment of normal neurobehavioral development and has identified characteristics of the fetus that could predict neurological developmental dysfunction. Kurjak antenatal neurodevelopmental test (KANET) is a method that has been shown to offer great advantages for the assessment of fetal neurobehavior, and the findings of KANET have been verified in many studies with postnatal assessments. We present a series of cases where KANET could better improve the evaluation of the prognosis that was made based on ultrasound findings.