Teratology  1995 Jan;51(1):45-6 

Teratogenic potential of corticosteroids in humans.

Fraser FC, Sajoo A.

Department of Biology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

The literature was surveyed in an attempt to assess whether corticosteroids have

a detectable teratogenic effect. Reporting bias was illustrated by the fact that

the frequency of malformations in offspring of women treated with

corticosteroids was much higher in reports of single cases than in reports of

series of cases. In the latter group there were 468 exposed women, and the

frequency of malformations was 3.5%, no different from the usual population

frequency. There were, however, 2 cases of cleft palate, whereas 0.2 cases would

be expected; it is impossible to tell whether this is a real increase. We

conclude that the teratogenic potential of corticosteroids is so low as to be

undetectable from the data available.