Özet:

Anencephaly is a neural tube defect where parts of the cerebrum are not developed. Data used in this study contains the prevalence of neural tube defects from 1992 to 2015 and it was extracted from the online data library HealthData.gov. 285 cases with anencephaly, 1540 cases with spina bifida and 473 cases with encephalocele were involved in the study. A 22% decrease of anencephaly was obtained after folate fortification. There is a strong correlation between the birth year and the number of cases from the respective year in anencephalic fetus (R = - 0,59). Anencephaly case count correlates moderately to spina bifida and encephalocele(R = 0,41, respectively R = 0,43). Mandatory fortification with folic acid led to a decrease in anencephaly and spina bifida prevalence, but encephalocele’s prevalence remained constant since the mandatory fortification.

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