Brain tissue aspiration in neural tube defect

Abstract

The study aimed to find out how frequent is brain tissue aspiration and if brain tissue heterotopia could be found in the lung of human neural tube defect cases. Histological sections of each lobe of both lungs of 22 fetuses and newborn with neural tube defect were immunostained for glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP). There were 15 (68.2%) females and 7 (31.8%) males. Age ranged from 18 to 40 weeks of gestation (mean= 31.8). Ten (45.5%) were stillborn, the same newborn, and 2 (9.1%) were abortuses. Diagnosis were: craniorrhachischisis (9 cases, 40.9%), anencephaly (8 cases, 36.4%), ruptured occipital encephalocele and rachischisis (2 cases, 9.1% each), and early amniotic band disruption sequence (1 case, 4.5%). Only one case (4.5%) exhibited GFAP positive cells inside bronchioles and alveoli admixed to epithelial amniotic squames. No heterotopic tissue was observed in the lung interstitium. We concluded that aspiration of brain tissue from the amniotic fluid in neural tube defect cases may happen but it is infrequent and heterotopia was not observed.