Fetal echocardiography: can early imaging identify fetuses at risk of congenital heart disease?
Mark Sklansky
Correspondence Childrens Hospital, Los Angeles Fetal Cardiology Program, 4650 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90027, USA
Email msklansky@chla.usc.edu
This article has no abstract so we have provided the first paragraph of the full text.
Carvalho and colleagues have elegantly demonstrated the ability of early fetal echocardiography between 11 and 16 weeks' gestation to accurately assess the fetal heart in high-risk pregnancies. Their findings suggest that, when carried out by experienced echocardiographers equipped with high-resolution transabdominal and transvaginal scanners, early fetal cardiac imaging can reliably detect congenital heart disease and subtle cardiac features commonly associated with ANEUPLOIDY. Over the past decade, improvements in echocardiograph resolution have enabled increasingly accurate evaluation of the fetal heart, even as early as 10 weeks' gestation.1 Given the widely accepted, evidence-based practice of later fetal cardiac imaging between 16 and 22 weeks, the benefits, limitations and clinical indications of the emerging practice of early fetal echocardiography deserve comment.
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