Objective: Pulmonary atresia is a relative rare critical congenital heart defect with ductal-dependent pulmonary circulation. Echocardiography is the gold standard in diagnoses congenital heart defect in newborns, but also is the only diagnostic modality of congenital heart defect in the fetus. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the impact of fetal echocardiography on outcome of patients with pulmonary atresia with ductal-dependent pulmonary flow.
Methods: A single-institution observational study was made on 19 children diagnosed by echocardiography with ductal-dependent pulmonary atresia in Pediatric Cardiology Department from 1997 to 2010, from which four were diagnosed prenatally by fetal echocardiography. We compared a series of clinical data between the prenatally (group 1) and postnatally diagnosed group (group 2), respectively.
Results: All of the infants diagnosed prenatally were delivered in a center for pediatric cardiology. The prostaglandine infusion, to maintain the patency of arterial duct, was initiated in the first 48 h after birth in every cases of the first group comparing to the second group (range3 h – 37 days) (26.66%) (p=0.03). Also, a significantly higher percent of group 1 managed to get in the cardiac unit in the first 48 h after birth comparing to the second group (range 1–37 days) (p=0.03).
Conclusions: We suggest that fetal diagnosis might improve neonatal outcome because of earlier appropriate therapeutic intervention.
The Impact of Fetal Echocardiography on Outcome of Patients with Pulmonary Atresia with Ductal-dependent Pulmonary Flow
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