Modern Ultrasonographic Techniques in Diagnosing Patients with a High Risk for Preterm Delivery

Abstract

Preterm delivery as the main cause of perinatal mortality and morbidity, remains the most important challenge of contemporary perinatology. In this study we present some new ultrasonographic methods in diagnosing women at high risk of preterm delivery. One of them is Three Dimensional (3D) assessment of cervix which allows evaluating uterine cervix simultaneously in three imaging planes: sagittal, transverse and coronal. The Virtual Organ Computer-aided Analysis imaging program (VOCAL) is a software which is integrated into a 3D ultrasound system. It is used to calculate cervical volume and power Doppler flow indices from the multiplanar views of the cervix. The technique allows to calculate vascularization index (VI), flow index (FI) and vascularization flow index (VFI). Elastography is a modern, non-invasive, easy and reproducible method which allows identifying patients with an increased risk of preterm birth in asymptomatic women. At the current stage of knowledge, the techniques mentioned above should be considered experimental and further studies are required to assess the potential of these sophisticated methods in routine clinical practice.