Why the study?
Fetuses of women with anti-Ro/anti-La antibodies risk rapid development of complete atrioventricular heart block, weekly echocardiography rarely detects emergent block, and surveillance remains controversial.
Home-monitoring with hand-held Doppler is being evaluated as a practical approach for early detection of fetal atrioventricular block in pregnant women with anti-Ro/La antibodies.
Home Doppler monitoring may aid timely CAVB detection in anti-Ro/La pregnancies; hypothesis-generating and requires randomized validation before adoption.
Fetuses of pregnant women affected by anti-Ro/anti La antibodies are at risk to develop complete atrioventricular heart block (CAVB) and other potentially life-threatening cardiac affections. CAVB can develop in less than 24 hours. Treatment with anti-inflammatory drugs and immuno-globulins (IVIG) can restore normal rhythm if applied in the transition period. Routine weekly echocardiography as often recommended will seldomly detect emergent AVB. Surveillance of these pregnancies is controversial. To obtain an overview of the current practice in Germany we have developed a web-based survey sent by the DEGUM (German Society of Ultrasound in Med-icine) to ultrasound specialists. Home-monitoring by hand-held Doppler is a promising new approach. With the intention to evaluate practicability, we instructed pregnant women at risk to use hand-held Doppler in the vulnerable period between 18-26 weeks at our university center.
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Bedei et al. (2024) studied this question.
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