Prenatal detection of a giant isolated coronary fistula.

Prenatal detection of an isolated congenital coronary artery fistula (ICCAF) requires an examination of the affected fetal hemodynamic situation by the fistula. Early pediatric cardiological presentation is needed, since prenatal changes may have relevant postpartal consequences.

Termination of pregnancy following prenatally diagnosed central nervous system malformations.

Purpose: To analyze fetal cerebral malformations with late termination of pregnancy (TOP) and to evaluate the rate of cases that could have been detected earlier using international recommended requirements of sonographic examination of the fetal central nervous system (CNS).

Materials And Methods: Cases of singleton pregnancies above 18 + 0 weeks of gestation ending in late TOP due to fetal CNS malformations between 2002 and 2011 were retrospectively reviewed. The cases were divided into isolated and non-isolated cerebral malformations.

Fetal pulmonary venous blood flow velocities in a normal population and new calculated reference values.

Objective: The aim of this study is to establish new Doppler reference values in a population with normal pulmonary veins during different phases of the fetal cardiac cycle for maximum blood flow velocities during ventricular systole (S), early ventricular diastole (D), atrial contraction (a), intensity-weighted mean velocity (Vmean) and the indices derived from these parameters [(S - a)/D] and [(S - a)/Vmean].

Methods: The pulsed-wave color advanced dynamic flow Doppler technique was used in a prospective cross-sectional study of 365 low-risk pregnancies between 18 and 41 completed gestational weeks. Reference ranges were calculated for the individual measuring parameters based on a growth function from a four-parameter class of monotonic continuous functions according to the smallest square principle.

Hematological changes in severe early onset growth-restricted fetuses with absent and reversed end-diastolic flow in the umbilical artery.

Background: Erythropoietin seems to play an important role in the regulation of fetal hypoxemia. The present prospective study was designed to determine if changes in erythropoietin levels can be found in fetuses with severe early-onset growth restriction and hemodynamic compromise.

Methods And Results: Erythropoietin, hemoglobin, hematocrit, platelet counts, normoblasts, lacate, arterial and venous blood gasses in the umbilical cord were determined in 42 fetuses with fetal growth restriction (IUGR) with absent (zero-flow) and 26 IUGR fetuses with retrograde end-diastolic flow (reverse-flow) in the umbilical artery.

Ebstein's Anomaly of the Tricuspid Valve in the Fetus - A Multicenter Experience.

 To assess the spectrum of associated anomalies, the intrauterine course, the outcome and possible prognostic markers in prenatally diagnosed Ebstein's anomaly (EA).  All cases of EA diagnosed over a period of 13 years with a minimum follow-up of 1 year were retrospectively collected in 4 tertiary referral centers in Germany.  In the study period 76 cases of EA were prenatally diagnosed.