The authors have provided solid demographic data that support the current quoted prevalence rates of exstrophy in the developed world. Register based studies such as this do suffer from inherent limitations. First, one can only ask questions of the outcomes that are measured in these large databases. Also the data manipulation of these registries often takes significant training. Additionally the anonymity of the data collected typically does not allow the investigators to backtrack into these data sets to answer the inevitable questions that arise from this sort of work. For instance did families in the region studied leave the area for care elsewhere if the condition was recognized prenatally? However, the rigor with which the data were acquired sets a standard that is worth emulating as we attempt to understand better the disease incidence and possible influence of genetics and the environment on congenital urogenital anomalies.
展开▼
