Prenatal ultrasonography and Doppler sonography for the clinical investigation of isolated ventricular septal defects in a late second-trimester population.

Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of prenatal ultrasonography and Doppler sonography in detecting isolated ventricular septal defects (VSDs) in a late-second-trimester population.

Methods: Fetal echocardiography, Doppler ultrasound, and biometry were used to evaluate 2,661 singleton fetuses (1,381 male fetuses and 1,280 female fetuses) between 1 August 2006 and 31 May 2010. The efficacy of each fetal biometry, Doppler ultrasound, and nasal bone length (NBL) measurement was evaluated in all of the fetuses. A standard fetal echocardiographic evaluation, including two-dimensional gray-scale imaging and color and Doppler color flow mapping, was performed on all fetuses.

Results: We detected isolated VSDs in 124 of the 2,661 singleton fetuses between 19 and 24 weeks of gestation. The prevalence of isolated VSDs in the study population was 4.66%. A multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that short fetal NBL (odds ratio = 0.691, 95% confidence interval: 0.551 to 0.868) and the pulsatility index (PI) of the umbilical artery (odds ratio = 8.095, 95% confidence interval: 4.309 to 15.207) and of the middle cerebral artery (odds ratio = 0.254, 95% confidence interval: 0.120 to 0.538) are significantly associated with isolated VSDs.

Conclusion: Late-second-trimester fetal NBL, umbilical artery PI, and middle cerebral artery PI are useful parameters for detecting isolated VSDs, and can be used to estimate the a priori risk of VSDs in women at high risk and at low risk of isolated VSDs.