Missed Diagnosis: Fate or fault?

Negligence is a pre-condition for fastening any liability on a medical practitioner for damages and compensation. In comparison with the other fields of medicine, litigations in obstetrics and radiology are very common now-days and one such example is in antenatal screening procedures. Neural tube defects are common birth defects with a prevalence of 4–5 cases per 10, 000 live births. Prenatal diagnosis of neural tube defects has implications in obstetric management whereby early detection and if needed, the termination of pregnancy could successfully reduce their incidence. The majority of claims involving neural tube defects involve allegations of delayed diagnosis. This present case of a child who was born subsequent to missed diagnosis of neural tube defects with complications, despite vigilant antenatal checkups and serial ultrasound scans which were taken up by her mother. This was considered as failure on the part of radiologist in detecting neural tube defect which could have been detected as late as 14–16 weeks. Here, we have discussed neural tube defects, their diagnosis and their medico-legal aspects.