Real-time 3-dimensional fetal echocardiography with an instantaneous volume-rendered display: early description and pictorial essay.
OBJECTIVE
Random fetal motion, rapid fetal heart rates, and cumbersome processing algorithms have limited reconstructive approaches to 3-dimensional fetal cardiac imaging. Given the recent development of real-time, instantaneous volume-rendered sonographic displays of volume data, we sought to apply this technology to fetal cardiac imaging.


METHODS
We obtained 1 to 6 volume data sets on each of 30 fetal hearts referred for formal fetal echocardiography. Each volume data set was acquired over 2 to 8 seconds and stored on the system's hard drive. Rendered images were subsequently processed to optimize translucency, smoothing, and orientation and cropped to reveal "surgeon's eye views" of clinically relevant anatomic structures. Qualitative comparison was made with conventional fetal echocardiography for each subject.


RESULTS
Volume-rendered displays identified all major abnormalities but failed to identify small ventricular septal defects in 2 patients. Important planes and views not visualized during the actual scans were generated with minimal processing of rendered image displays. Volume-rendered displays tended to have slightly inferior image quality compared with conventional 2-dimensional images.


CONCLUSIONS
Real-time 3-dimensional echocardiography with instantaneous volume-rendered displays of the fetal heart represents a new approach to fetal cardiac imaging with tremendous clinical potential.
Sklansky
Mark S
MS
University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California, USA. msklansky@chla.usc.edu
DeVore
Greggory R
GR
Wong
Pierre C
PC
D000328:Adult; D019560:Echocardiography, Three-Dimensional; D005260:Female; D006330:Heart Defects, Congenital / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D011247:Pregnancy; D016216:Ultrasonography, Prenatal