Successful prenatal therapy of thoracic lesions.

Improvements in prenatal imaging techniques now permit in utero treatment of potentially serious lesions. We describe three cases in which decompression of significant space-occupying thoracic lesions resulted in an excellent clinical outcome. The pregnancies were all carried to term after second or early third trimester intervention and resulted in infants with minimal respiratory distress. Cytologic and chemical analysis of the thoracic fluid aspirated in utero provided diagnostic and physiologic information.