Multi-plane approach for early screening of fetal congenital heart disease using echocardiography

Objective To evaluate the diagnosis accuracy of multi-plane echocardiography for fetal congenital heart disease (CHD). Methods Twelve thousand six hundred and fifty-eight pregnant women in Danzhou People's Hospital from January 2012 to December 2017 were selected. The fetal CHD was screened by multi-plane echocardiography, and then compared with the follow-up postnatal ultrasound, neonatal cardiac surgery or autopsy results. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of echocardiography were calculated. Results One hundred and sixty-six cases of congenital heart disease were detected by prenatal echocardiography in 12 658 pregnant women, with the detection rate of 1.31% (166/12 658). CHD was identified in 15 neonates out of 12 492 normal cases after delivery, and the rate of missed diagnosis was 1.2‰. Of the 166 cases of fetal CHD, 16 cases were misdiagnosed. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value of ultrasound multi section method in diagnosing fetal CHD were 90.91%, 99.87%, 90.36%, 99.88%, respectively. The accuracy of ultrasound multi section method in diagnosing fetal CHD was 99.76%. Conclusion Multi-plane echocardiography has high applicative value in prenatal CHD diagnosis.