title: Early prenatal diagnosis of hydrocephalus.
abstract: The aim of the present study was to assess the accuracy of various measurements of the lateral ventricles (LVs) for the early prenatal diagnosis of evolving congenital hydrocephalus. A prospective study was conducted among 61 normal pregnancies, and 20 pregnancies complicated by neural axis malformations, between 19 and 24 weeks' gestation. The following ultrasound measurements were obtained: atrial width (AW); atrial-width/cerebro-atrial distance (CAD); left ventricular width/hemispheric distance, and cerebro-frontal horn/hemispheric width (HW) distance. Atrial width or AW/CAD had the highest diagnostic accuracy of 97.1% between 19-21 weeks; and 100% between 22-24 weeks. The other two parameters had improved accuracy as gestational age increased. However, between 19-21 weeks the other parameters were below 90% in their diagnostic accuracy. These data demonstrate that the simple measurement of the AW, used either singly or as a ratio with the CAD is effective for the early prenatal diagnosis of evolving hydrocephalus.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19140, USA.
authors.forename: E A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Reece
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Goldstein
mesh_terms: D061085:Agenesis of Corpus Callosum; D002508:Cephalometry; D002550:Cerebral Veins / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D002552:Cerebral Ventricles / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D003337:Corpus Callosum / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D003616:Dandy-Walker Syndrome; D004453:Echoencephalography; D005260:Female; D005315:Fetal Diseases / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D005865:Gestational Age; D006801:Humans; D006849:Hydrocephalus / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D008831:Microcephaly / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D011247:Pregnancy; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012688:Septum Pellucidum / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D016135:Spinal Dysraphism / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D016216:Ultrasonography, Prenatal