Information from 14 states displayed an increase in incidence of gastrochisis from 3.6 per 10,000 births from 1995 to 2005, to 4.9 per 10,000 births from 2006 to 2012.
The rate of occurrence in Texas is now 5.38 per 10,000 births, according to the Houston Chronicle.
“It represents an urgent call to action,” Jason Salemi, PhD, an epidemiologist with Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and a co-author of a CDC report on gastrochisis released in January, told the Chronicle. “We really don’t know what the underlying causes are.”
Gastrochisis was once commonly fatal, but medical advances have rendered the condition mostly treatable. Ninety-five percent of babies born with the condition survive.
While some experts believe the sustained increase is due to some type of environmental exposure, others argue that the increase in occurrence could be because of the improved survival rates.
KuoJen Tsao, MD, co-director of The Fetal Center at Children’s Memorial Hermann and a professor of pediatric surgery at UTHealth in Houston, told the Chronicle that though the evidence is lacking, he thinks the number of pregnancy terminations due to a diagnosis of gastrochisis is going down. That may be a contributing factor in the overall increase of cases in Texas and nationwide.
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