BOSTON, June 11 A U.S. study on congenital diaphragmatic hernia, or CDH, found diversity of the condition and problems in assessing just how widespread it is.Kate G. Ackerman and Barbara R. Pober, of Harvard Medical School, and several of the authors from affiliated Harvard hospitals note that it is not known how many different types of diaphragm defects occur in humans or which types are developmentally related."We anticipate that widespread use of a standard approach to CDH classification will improve the quality of information in the medical literature and ultimately will be used to develop genotype-phenotype correlations," the researchers said in a statement. The study was published in a special issue of the American Journal of Medical Genetics.The diaphragm, a shelf of muscle that separates the chest cavity from the abdominal cavity, is critical to sustaining life. CDH results from failure of normal diaphragm formation, which in turn allows abdominal organs to migrate into the chest cavity.Copyright 2007 by UPI
