Routine betamethasone therapy of non-hydropic fetuses with CPAM - the way to improve perinatal outcome?

Authors discuss novel approach to the management of fetal congenital pulmonary cystic malformation (CPAM) and possible benefit of routine administration of betamethasone, which is currently recommended only for severe cases. The article presents authors' own experience with antenatally diagnosed CPAM and describes 4 cases of prenatally diagnosed CPAM without hydrops treated by two doses of betamethasone at 21-31 weeks of gestation with the aim of improving the perinatal prognosis by effect on not only mortality but also postnatal morbidity. Article also summarizes current knowledge on all aspects of the prenatal CPAM focusing on its treatment options. Data were obtained from the literature search based on the PubMed and Scopus database with additional search of particular articles from reference list of the selected publications.All 4 patients from the case reports showed regression of the pulmonary mass after maternal administration of betamethasone with 100 % survival rate. Even though it is not possible to say if the CPAM regression was due to the betamethasone treatment, we did not observe any complication in relation to the treatment and all cases survived until discharge. During the literature search, we did not find any data on betamethasone administration in non-hydropic fetuses with CPAM in relation to the overall perinatal and postnatal morbidity, neither data comparing the outcome between the treated versus observed only fetuses.Routine betamethasone treatment should be discussed in antenatally diagnosed CPAM cases without fetal hydrops in order to reduce the perinatal morbidity associated with CPAM (Tab. 1, Ref. 47). Keywords: betamethasone, CPAM (congenital pulmonary adenomatoid malformation), fetal therapy.