Each year, more than 4500 pregnancies in the European Union are affected by neural tube defects. Unambiguous evidence of the effectiveness of periconceptional folic acid in preventing neural tube defects has been available since 1991, and improving folate status sufficiently could result in the prevention of more than two thirds of all neural tube defects. We report on trends in the prevalence ...

OBJECTIVE To verify whether Down's syndrome and neural tube defects arise more often in the same family than expected by chance. DESIGN Population and familial survey. SETTING Network of maternity hospitals in the Latin American collaborative study of congenital malformations (ECLAMC) in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela between 198...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the prevalence and factors associated to neural tube defects in liveborn and stillborn infants delivered at the Hospital das Clínicas, UFMG, from January 8, 1999 to July 31, 2000. METHODS This is a descriptive study, based on a database, according to the Latin-American Collaborative Study of Congenital Malformation (ECLAMC) rules. Reports on liveborn and stillborn infan...

Closure of the neural tube during embryogenesis is a crucial step in development of the central nervous system. Failure of this process results in neural tube defects, including spina bifida and anencephaly, which are among the most common birth defects worldwide. Maternal use of folic acid supplements reduces risk of neural tube defects but a proportion of cases are not preventable. Folic acid...

The recurrence of isolated neural tube defects in a population of women from a genetic counselling clinic was found to be 3.4%. After one baby with a neural tube defect the recurrence was 2.3%. Of the 15 pregnancies of women who had two previous babies with neural tube defects, there were three further recurrences. These findings show that the Hungarian recurrence risk of isolated neural tube d...

The human neural tube develops and closes during the third and fourth week after conception and is normally completed by 28 days post-conception. Malformations, knows as neural tube defects, occure, when the normal closure process fails. Several clinical types of neural tube defects are recognized, anencefaly and spina bifida being the most common. Such malformations are generally associated wi...