Why the study?
2D-STE has prognostic value in children and adults with CHD, suggesting its importance in fetal life should also be considered.
Does fetal 2D-STE measuring GLS and GLSR detect differences in ventricular function between fetuses with congenital heart disease and controls?
Does fetal 2D-STE measuring GLS and GLSR detect differences in ventricular function between fetuses with congenital heart disease and controls?
Fetal 2D-STE reveals significant differences in ventricular global longitudinal strain and strain rate in fetuses with various congenital heart diseases compared to controls, highlighting its potential utility in fetal cardiac assessment.
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May improve fetal CHD risk stratification; extends speckle-tracking prognostic data from children/adults to prenatal life.
Fetal two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography (2D-STE) is a novel technique that provides information on fetal heart function by measuring global longitudinal strain (GLS) and global longitudinal strain rate (GLSR). These features assess the longitudinal deformity of the fetal cardiac wall. 2D-STE is shown to be of prognostic value in children and adults with congenital heart disease (CHD). Therefore, its importance in fetal life should also be considered. This systematic review and meta-analysis provides an overview of the literature on 2D-STE (GLS/GLSR) in fetuses with CHD, focusing on the left and right ventricles (LV/RV). Findings indicated that LV-GLS was significantly lower in fetuses with coarctation of the aorta (CoA) and Tetralogy of Fallot (ToF) compared to controls. Conversely, fetuses with a single left ventricle exhibited higher LV-GLS. RV-GLS was significantly lower in fetuses with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) and ToF compared to controls. LV-GLSR was significantly lower in fetuses with CoA. Overall, considerable heterogeneity was observed, possibly due to differences in study design. More prospective longitudinal studies on 2D-STE in fetuses with CHD, considering heterogeneity parameters, could offer better insights into this promising technique.
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Wildenberg et al. (2024) studied this question.
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