It's one of the biggest controversies in fetal surgery and the
cause of heated debate among surgeons and maternal-fetal
medicine physicians around the world: What's the best way to
treat twin-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), one of the most
common conditions requiring fetal surgery and the leading cause
of mortality in twins? The benchmark, NIH-funded study on TTTS,
conducted at 17 centers in the United States, will be presented
February 9 at the annual meeting of the Society for Maternal-
Fetal Medicine in San Francisco, and it won't likely resolve the
question of which is the best procedure. The study, led by
Timothy Crombleholme, M.D., director of the Fetal Care Center of
Cincinnati, shows that the question isn't which surgical
procedure is better, it's when the procedure is done. Dr.
Crombleholme issued a clarion call to fetal care specialists
around the world. "The earlier in gestation TTTS is diagnosed,
the more severe the syndrome tends to be," says Dr.
Crombleholme, who is also a pediatric surgeon at