Malformations attributed to the process of vascular disruption.

Malformations attributed to the process of vascular disruption were a distinctive entity, among the recognized etiologies. The timing of the causative event in the first trimester was established for infants with exposures to either the prostaglandin misoprostol or the prenatal diagnosis procedure chorionic villus sampling. One challenge is to identify the developmental steps in vascular disruption when no causative exposure can be identified.