Abstract
Background. The discovery of ultrasound has made a revolution in almost all fields of medicine. The past three decades have withessed an intensive development of fetal echocardiography methods and technique. The aim of the paper is to present a review of the results and trends of the last 10 years of fetal echocardiography in Lithuania and to show the spectrum and outcomes of prenatally detected congenital heart diseases.
Materials and methods. Fetal echocardiography was performed for 1816 fetuses during the period from 1999 to 2009.
Results. Cardiac pathology was diagnosed in 176 (9.7%) fetuses. Heart defects were detected in 112 (63.6%) of them, cardiac rhythm and conduction disturbances in 62 (35.2%), cardiomyopathy in 2 (1.1%) fetuses, and heart rhabdomyoma in 1 (0.6%) fetus. The general rate of the postnatal diagnosis of congenital heart defects in Lithuania was about 10%. Most of fetal cardiac diseases (70.5%) were diagnosed after 22 weeks of gestation. Because most of antenatally diagnosed congenital heart defects (74%) were critical and inconsistent with life, a large part of newborns (40.2%) died in the neonatal period, 10.7% of fetuses died in utero, and 8% of pregnancies were terminated by abortion. The data demonstrate good tendencies: the diagnosis has become earlier, a wider spectrum of diseases have been diagnosed, more newborns have survived. Our survey shows that 41.1% of newborns with prenatally diagnosed congenital heart defects have survived.
Conclusions. 10% of severe congenital heart diseases are detected prenatally in Lithuania. The efficacy of antenatal diagnostics depends on the qualification of specialists, the number of tertiary care centers, on a successful collaboration among pediatric cardiologists, obstetricians and geneticists. The main problem is an insufficient preparation of obstetricians, the uncertified favor of pediatric cardiologist.
Keywords: congenital heart disease, fetal echocardiography, antenatal diagnostics
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
Most read articles by the same author(s)
-
Osman Aktas,
Ozgür Akbaba,
Muhammet Hamidullah Uyanik,
Hakan Uslu,
Evaluation of Blood Culture Results in Patients with Malignancy in Erzurum Province, Turkey
,
Acta medica Lituanica: Vol. 31 No. 1 (2024): Acta medica Lituanica
-
Konstantinos Nikolettos,
Efthymios Oikonomou,
Sonia Kotanidou,
Nektaria Kritsotaki,
Dimitrios Kyriakou,
Panagiotis Tsikouras,
Emmanouil Kontomanolis,
Angeliki Gerede,
Nikos Nikolettos,
A Systematic Review about Cervical Pregnancy and our Experience
,
Acta medica Lituanica: Vol. 31 No. 1 (2024): Acta medica Lituanica
-
Elvyra GRINIENĖ,
Antanas BAGDONAS,
Vida BLIUMBERGIENĖ,
Integration and health care of pupils with special needs in Kaunas schools
,
Acta medica Lituanica: Vol. 18 No. 1 (2011)
-
Laura Steponavičienė,
Rasa Vansevičiūtė,
Lina Zabulienė,
Domantas Jasilionis,
Vincas Urbonas,
Giedrė Smailytė,
Reproductive Factors and Breast Cancer Risk in Lithuanian Women: A Population-Based Cohort Study
,
Acta medica Lituanica: Vol. 27 No. 2 (2020): Acta medica Lituanica
-
Jelena Rascon,
Giedrė Smailytė,
Improvement in childhood cancer survival in Lithuania over three decades
,
Acta medica Lituanica: Vol. 27 No. 1 (2020): Acta medica Lituanica
-
Tautvydas Baranauskas,
Agnė Kaunienė,
Milda Švagždienė,
Edmundas Širvinskas,
Tadas Lenkutis,
The correlation of post-operative acute kidney injury and perioperative anaemia in patients undergoing cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass
,
Acta medica Lituanica: Vol. 26 No. 1 (2019): Acta Medica Lituanica
-
Sonal Sogani,
Vandana Varma,
Purnima Dey Sarkar,
Significance of urine albumin / creatinine ratio (UACR) and uric acid in women with preeclampsia and its comparison with healthy normotensive pregnant women in their third trimester
,
Acta medica Lituanica: Vol. 21 No. 1 (2014)
-
Luize Auzina,
Inguna Lubaua,
Elina Ligere,
Inga Lace,
Inta Bergmane,
Baiba Matsone-Matsate,
Pauls Silis,
Lauris Smits,
Normunds Sikora,
Lars Søndergaard,
Valts Ozolins,
Initial experience with Edwards SAPIEN valve transcatheter implantation in native RVOT in Latvia
,
Acta medica Lituanica: Vol. 27 No. 1 (2020): Acta medica Lituanica
-
Vilius Rudaitis,
Ugnius Mickys,
Justina Katinaitė,
Justyna Dulko,
Successful treatment of advanced stage yolk sac tumour of extragonadal origin: a case report and review of literature
,
Acta medica Lituanica: Vol. 23 No. 2 (2016)
-
Jelena ISAJEVA,
Mindaugas ŠILKŪNAS,
Gražina Stanislava DRĄSUTIENĖ,
Daiva BARTKEVIČIENĖ,
Features of the sexual life during pregnancy
,
Acta medica Lituanica: Vol. 19 No. 2 (2012)