title: Fetal echocardiographic screening for congenital heart disease: the importance of the four-chamber view.
abstract: The four-chamber view of the heart has been proposed as a screening method for obstetrical sonographers to assess the fetus for the presence of congenital heart disease. We examined the fetuses in 1022 pregnancies and found 74 structurally abnormal hearts. Seventy-one of these (96%) were found to have an abnormality as seen in the four-chamber view. The four-chamber view of the heart had 92% sensitivity and 99.7% specificity in the detection of congenital heart disease. The positive predictive value was 95.8%, and the negative predictive value was 99.4%. We conclude that the four-chamber view may be a useful screen for the presence of congenital heart disease and should be included as a part of all routine obstetric ultrasound examinations.
mesh_terms: D004452:Echocardiography / Q000379:methods*; D005188:False Negative Reactions; D005189:False Positive Reactions; D005260:Female; D005315:Fetal Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005318:Fetal Heart / Q000473:pathology*; D006330:Heart Defects, Congenital / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D011247:Pregnancy; D011296:Prenatal Diagnosis; D012306:Risk