Heart stroke volume and cardiac output by four‐dimensional ultrasound in normal fetuses

Abstract

Objective To establish reference intervals for fetal heart stroke volume and cardiac output with gestation. Methods

Accuracy, Agreement, and Reliability of Fetal Cardiac Measurements Using 4-Dimensional Spatiotemporal Image Correlation

“…Similar findings have been reported by Uittenbogaard et al 19 and Molina et al 43 in fetal cardiac function assessment, suggesting that the use of STIC might result in generally smaller measurements than traditional 2D sonography.…”

Fetal cardiac output and ejection fraction by spatio-temporal image correlation (STIC): comparison between male and female fetuses

“…We opted for the determination of reference values from 26 weeks, taking into account fetal viability. In relation to the previous study by Molina et al [14], who evaluated 100 fetuses of both sexes, between 12 and 34 weeks, we observed that their values were overestimated compared to ours. We believe that one possible reason is the inclusion in the endocardium volume calculation, while in this study only the area delimited anechoic (blood) present in the cardiac chambers, the same as in previous studies by our group [16.28] .…”

“…This study did not evaluate the reproducibility of the method STIC and VOCAL, because it has been proven in a previous study conducted by our group [16], as well as other studies [14,27,29].…”

“…With respect to cardiac evaluation at STIC, first study was performed by Messing et al [13], who evaluated the volume of the ventricular chambers in both systole and diastole in 100 fetuses using methods Virtual Organ Computer-aided Analysis (VOCAL) associated with the inversion mode. Later, other authors also evaluated fetal cardiac function and Molina et al [14] who used the STIC associated only with VOCAL, Uittenbogaard et al [15] who used the STIC and 3D slice method and, more recently, Simioni et al [16] and Hamill et al [17], using only the VOCAL associated with STIC. However, no studies comparing cardiac function by means of 3D U.S. with STIC in relation to gender.…”

AIUM Practice Guideline for the Performance of Fetal Echocardiography

“…Doppler sonography and speckle-tracking technologies have also been described for ventricular strain and myocardial performance index measurements. [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39] …”