Three-dimensional ultrasonography in early pregnancy.
Three-dimensional ultrasound was introduced into clinical use over a decade ago. Early attempts on three-dimensional ultrasound were primitive and limited to experimental use only. Recently, it was used as a powerful tool to display three-dimensional fetal appearance and assess normal and pathological conditions. Because of the improvement in image resolution and reconstruction speed, three-dimensional ultrasound is now more and more popular in many centers, and used commonly as an adjunct in prenatal diagnosis. Indeed, a skillful sonographer may usually make the correct diagnosis of fetal anomaly with simply two-dimensional ultrasound. Nonetheless, the situation is gradually changing, because some anomalies have been diagnosed only based on the findings of three-dimensional ultrasound. In spite of that, the application of three-dimensional ultrasound is still less discussed in early pregnancy. In this article, the authors clarify the capability of three-dimensional ultrasound in different anatomic areas, and catalog its clinical merits in the early pregnancy to date. We also present the safety guidelines for its use in the first trimester.
Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei.
J C
JC
Shih
R
R
Jaffe
F J
FJ
Hsieh
D005314:Embryonic and Fetal Development / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011247:Pregnancy; D011296:Prenatal Diagnosis / Q000379:methods*; D016216:Ultrasonography, Prenatal / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000379:methods*