Why the study?
What are the diagnostic findings and utility of fetal echocardiography in high-risk pregnancies?
What are the diagnostic findings and utility of fetal echocardiography in high-risk pregnancies?
Fetal echocardiography is a valuable noninvasive diagnostic tool for identifying serious hemodynamic problems and structural heart disease in selected high-risk pregnancies.
Supports selective fetal echocardiography in high-risk pregnancies; leaves open optimal criteria and outcome impact.
Over 8 years, 680 fetuses in 521 gestations underwent echocardiography. Indications included genetic or teratogenic risk, arrhythmias, diabetes, collagen vascular disease, hypertension, growth retardation, and hydrops. Most studies were normal. Eight fetuses had structural heart disease, 31 had benign atrial or ventricular premature beats, five had benign unsustained arrhythmias, three had heart block associated with maternal autoantibodies, and one had sustained supraventricular tachycardia with hydrops. Eight had suspected hydrops, fetal demise, or molar pregnancy. There were 19 cases of abnormal umbilical artery Doppler waveforms and three with pathologic cerebral artery waveforms.Fetal echocardiography is a valuable noninvasive diagnostic tool in selected cases with a high sensitivity and specificity for serious hemodynamic problems.
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Friedman et al. (1992) studied this question.