Detailed three‐dimensional fetal echocardiography facilitated by an Internet link

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Accuracy of the Fetal Echocardiography in the High Risk Pregnancies

“…[58][59][60] Increasing role of 3D or live 3D ultrasonography, and telemedicine are promising fields of the development of fetal echocardiography, with the possibility to improve detection rate and accuracy of prenatal CHD diagnosis. [9][10][11][61][62][63][64][65][66] Goal of the development of fetal echocardiography should be to increase prenatal detection rate of most hemodynamically significant CHD in early pregnancy in order to decrease late diagnosis of CHD postnatally. After the diagnosis of the CHD, the appropriate multidisciplinary counseling should be offered with the development of effective treatment.…”

Real-time 3-Dimensional Fetal Echocardiography With an Instantaneous Volume-Rendered Display

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] Rapid and facile, 3D imaging allows the acquisition of a volume data set in a matter of seconds, in comparison with the more prolonged interval typically required for conventional fetal cardiac imaging. Thus, whereas conventional fetal cardiac imaging requires a great deal of expertise, acquisition of volume data sets appears far less dependent on operator expertise.…”

“…Rendered displays of volume data allow surgeon's eye views of important anatomic structures not easily visualized or understood on conventional 2D imaging. Ultimately, volumes may be able to be sent over the Internet, 11 so that centers with particular expertise can evaluate entire fetal cardiac volumes as if the patient were present at the bedside, raising the concept of "virtual imaging." Finally, 3D imaging promises to provide more accurate and reproducible quantitative measurements of cardiac size and function than those provided by 2D imaging, which have geometric assumptions and image plane positioning errors.…”

“…Although the majority of work in fetal 3D sonographic cardiac imaging has focused on reconstructive techniques, [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]14 real-time 3D technology has recently emerged as a potentially superior approach to fetal car-diac imaging. 12,13,15 Although reconstructive techniques acquire a series of planar images over several seconds, real-time approaches acquire entire volumes (rather than single planes) instantaneously, using specialized 2D matrix, phased array transducers.…”

Telemedicine in the Diagnosis and Managemnt of Congenital Heart Disease

“…It is an easy technique for acquiring data from the fetal heart (a single, automatic volume sweep) and produces a 4D cine sequence. (Michailidis et al, 2001) A group from Chile conducted a similar study STIC transmitted across an ADSL connection with bandwidths of 300 and 600 kbps. In total fifty scans were transmitted from two peripheral hospitals to the regional centre.…”