Treatment
During pregnancy
Antenatal management only occurs if a mother has had a previously affected baby or a family member has had an affected baby.Interventions can be classified as invasive or non-invasive.A review of the evidence has shown that invasive management resulted in a relatively high complication rate (mainly preterm emergency cesarean section) of 11% per treated pregnancy. Noninvasive management was also shown to be effective, but without the relatively high rate of adverse outcomes seen with invasive management. They concluded that first-line antenatal management in NAIT should be non-invasive with weekly intravenous immunoglobulin administration, with or without the addition of corticosteroids.Recent international guidelines have now recommended non-invasive management of NAIT. Previously there had been no international consensus on the optimal antenatal management of NAIT, and numerous strategies had been used in different centers that specialized in antenatal treatment. Invasive management
Fetal blood sampling from the umbilical cord and intrauterine platelet transfusion was the first antenatal treatment for NAIT to prevent intracerebral hemorrhage. However, this is no longer recommended routinely because of the serious risk of harms. Cordocentesis in the presence of a low platelet count may lead to serious complications, these included slowing of the babys heart (fetal bradycardia), tamponade of the cord, and bleeding complications in the baby, including exsanguination. Fetal blood sampling is estimated to cause death of the baby in 1.3% of procedures, however the incidence varies significantly from center to center.
However, IVIG and platelet transfusions are also associated with harm and therefore should be avoided if they are not necessary.After a first affected pregnancy, if a mother has plans for a subsequent pregnancy, then the mother and father should be typed for platelet antigens and the mother screened for alloantibodies. Testing is available through reference laboratories (such as ARUP). DNA testing of the father can be used to determine zygosity of the involved antigen and therefore risk to future pregnancies (if homozygous for the antigen, all subsequent pregnancies will be affected, if heterozygous, there is an approximate 50% risk to each subsequent pregnancy). During subsequent pregnancies, the genotype of the fetus can also be determined using amniotic fluid analysis or maternal blood as early as 18 weeks gestation to definitively determine the risk to the fetus. References
External links
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