Research Information System
Turkiye Klinikleri Jinekoloji Obstetrik, vol.23, no.3, pp.168-175, 2013 (Scopus)
Objective: Objective: In this study, referral justifications of pregnant women who were referred to our clinic for fetal echocardiographic examination in a one-year period and their fetal echocardiography results were evaluated retrospectively and the reliability of fetal echocardiography was assessed by comparing fetal echocardiography results with postnatal echocardiography, autopsy, and surgery findings. Material and Methods: In this trial, 990 cases who were performed fetal echocardiographic examinations in the one-year period were evaluated retrospectively. Prenatal and postnatal data of 440 (12 twin pregnancies) of these 990 pregnant women were achieved and totally 452 fetuses were included in the study. Fetal echocardiography results were compared with postnatal echocardiography, autopsy, and surgery findings. Results: The ages of 440 pregnant women included in the study were in a range from 17 to 46 years (median 28±2,7 years). Given referral justifications denoted by obstetricians, the main reasons involve the presence of echogenic intracardiac focus (EIF) on obstetric ultrasonography (133 cases, 29.42%), routine practice (72 cases, 15.93%), presence of diabetes (52 cases, 11.50%), dysrhythmia (37 cases, 8.19%), suspected CHD on ultrasonography (36 cases, 7.96%). Postnatal echocardiography revealed normal (299 cases, 66.15%), PFO (74 cases, 16,37%), peripheral pulmonary stenosis (PPS) (10 cases, 2.21%), and CHD (33 cases, 7.30%). Among all cases, 7 cases resulted in medical abortus and intrauterine fetal death was observed in 4 cases. The fetal echocardiography had a sensitivity of 68.97%, specificity of 98.79%, to recognize CHD. Conclu-sion: According to the data achieved in our study, the presence of EIF was the first-ranked justification to ask fetal echocardiography by obstetricians. There were few cases that we evaluated normal on fetal echo-cardiography but then we identified CHD on postnatal echocardiography (false-negative), these cases were mainly VSD, PS, ASD-type defects. According to the data achieved in our study, fetal echocardiography is a reliable method to demonstrate CHD in prenatal period. Copyright © 2013 by Türkiye Klinikleri.