TY - JOUR T1 - Amniotic fluid macrophages and the antenatal diagnosis of anencephaly and spina bifida. JF - Journal of Medical Genetics JO - J Med Genet SP - 135 LP - 137 DO - 10.1136/jmg.12.2.135 VL - 12 IS - 2 AU - G R Sutherland AU - D J Brock AU - J B Scrimgeour Y1 - 1975/06/01 UR - http://jmg.bmj.com/content/12/2/135.abstract N2 - The macrophage content of amniotic fluid has been measured and the upper limit of normal on an arbitrary scale is 41. Amongst 65 amniotic fluids collected for antenatal diagnostic studies before 22weeks' gestation there were eight which had macrophage counts ranging from 82 to 6226,three of these were shown to have anencephaly and two spina bifida. The reasons for three apparently false positives are as yet undetermined. Rhesus iso-immunized amniotic fluids were found to have macrophage counts of up to 276 and a possible explanation for this is considered. It is argued that an elevated aminotic fluid macrophage count may indicate a CNS defect or possibly other fetal abnormality. ER -