Umbilical cord cyst

The umbilical cord cyst was nothing more than a passing mention in our ultrasound appointment, clearly far less of a concern than the other two major issues.

But, of course, I wanted to read a little more about umbilical cord cysts to understand more about them. 

The good news is that there can be an isolated umbilical cord cyst without any fetal abnormalities:

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0100-39842008000300006&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en

On the other hand, the article notes that there is a correlation between umbilical cord cysts and anomalies, in up to 50% of cases, particularly in findings occurring at the second and third trimesters of gestation.  (In the first trimester, the cysts can be transitory, and most children with them will be normal, so there is not as much of a concern.)  Prevalence of umbilical cord cysts sonographically found at different gestational ages ranges between 0.4% and 3.4% (the more prevalent number was found in a high-risk population).

The article explains that “true umbilical cord cysts” develop in the fetal end of the umbilical cord and are associated with gastrointestinal and geniturinary tracts abnormalities (omphalocele, persistence of the urachus and obstructive uropathy).  So, for us, the umbilical cord cyst likely associated with the omphalocele.  “Pseudo-cysts,” on the other hand, do not present an epithelial lining (embryonic structures), and “originate from a focal edema of the Wharton’s jelly or from its absence because of degenerative alterations.”  They are more frequent than the “true” ones and have been found in cases of omphalocele and trisomy 18.  The article notes that differentiation between true and pseudo-cysts cannot be achieved by means of ultrasonography, only by means of a histopathologic study (i.e. a study of the tissue).

The article considers nine cases of isolated umbilical cord cysts found over a 10 year period, two found in the first trimester and the remainder found in the second and third trimester.  In all cases, the babies were chromosomally normal and born healthy.

This article suggests that 20% of cases with cord cysts also have structural/chromosomal abnormalities:

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/262470-overview#a6

It suggests that for patients with large cysts, they may need to have a c-section to avoid rupture of the cyst during labor.

And here’s a baby center Q&A with lots of happy outcomes with umbilical cord cysts:

http://www.babycenter.com/400_umbilical-cord-cysts_2320485_656.bc?sortFieldName=