The significance and importance of prenatal diagnosis of fetal cardiac malformations by Doppler echocardiography

Pulsed Doppler echocardiography is an excellent technique for cardiac diagnosis and assessment of cardiac performance in combination with M-mode and two-dimensional echocardiography. Its exact role in fetal cardiac diagnosis has not been established. We examined 67 high-risk fetuses for cardiac malformations and found cardiac abnormalities or malfunction in 15. In four fetuses pulsed Doppler echocardiography played a primary or a definitive diagnostic role: One fetus had a complete atrioventricular canal, another lacked the pulmonary valve, the third had transposition of the great vessels without ventricular septal defect, and the fourth had high cardiac output failure caused by placental chorioangioma. Pulsed Doppler echocardiography is an integral part of the ultrasonic cardiac examination in high-risk fetuses and should be used in combination with two-dimensional and M-mode echocardiography. It has an important place in the diagnosis of high-risk fetuses and may have a primary role in the diagnosis of fetuses when ultrasound resolution is poor, where cardiac circulatory hemodynamics are essential for diagnosis, and in complicated cardiac malformations in which a comprehensive and accurate diagnosis can be achieved only with pulsed Doppler echocardiography.