title: Recent trends in indications of fetal echocardiography and postnatal outcomes in fetuses diagnosed as congenital heart disease.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We hypothesized that fetal echocardiography (echoCG) is an accurate diagnostic tool reflecting well postnatal echoCG findings and outcomes.
  
  
  METHODS
  We reviewed the medical records of 290 pregnant women, including 313 fetuses, who were examined by fetal echoCG at the Seoul National University Children's Hospital from January 2008 through April 2011.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean gestational age at diagnosis was 26.2±5.2 weeks. The mean age of mothers at diagnosis was 31.7±3.8 years. We identified indications for fetal echoCG in 279 cases. The most common indication was abnormal cardiac findings in obstetrical screening sonography (52.0%). Among the 313 echoCG results, 127 (40.6%) were normal, 13 (4.2%) were minor abnormalities, 35 (11.2%) were simple cardiac anomalies, 50 (16.0%) were moderate cardiac anomalies, 60 (19.2%) were complex cardiac anomalies, 16 (5.1%) were arrhythmias, and 12 (3.8%) were twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. The most common congenital heart disease was tetralogy of Fallot (23 fetuses, 15.9%). One hundred forty-eight neonates were examined by echoCG. We analyzed differences between fetal echoCG and postnatal echoCG. In 131 (88.5%) cases, there was no difference; in 15 (10.1%), there were minor differences; and in only 2 (1.4%) cases, there were major differences.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is a recent increase in abnormal cardiac findings of obstetric ultrasonography screenings that indicate fetal echoCG. Fetal echoCG is still a good, accurate diagnostic method for congenital heart disease.
authors: Department of Pediatrics, Seoul National University Children's Hospital, Seoul, Korea.
authors: Seulgi
authors: S
authors: Cha
authors: Gi Beom
authors: GB
authors: Kim
authors: Bo Sang
authors: BS
authors: Kwon
authors: Eun Jung
authors: EJ
authors: Bae
authors: Chung Il
authors: CI
authors: Noh
authors: Hong Gook
authors: HG
authors: Lim
authors: Woong Han
authors: WH
authors: Kim
authors: Jeong Ryul
authors: JR
authors: Lee
authors: Yong Jin
authors: YJ
authors: Kim
authors: Jung Yun
authors: JY
authors: Choi
keywords: Echocardiography; Heart defect, congenital; Prenatal diagnosis; Ultrasonography, prenatal