Pediatric Cardiology

Biography

Biography: Sofía Grinenco

Abstract

The prenatal diagnosis of congenital heart defects has contributed to an increase in survival of patients and the decrease of costs for the healthcare system. In the past few years’ advances in technique and technology have allowed a better visualization of the fetal heart, as well as further understanding and interpretation of pathological findings, increasing accuracy of prenatal diagnosis of congenital heart defects and improving therapeutic strategies and patient’s outcome.
The experience in prenatal diagnosis in a specialized tertiary healthcare Centre is presented. In a 5-year period 230 patients with prenatal diagnosis of congenital heart defects were born in our Centre. In 90% of these cases prenatal and postnatal diagnosis were the same. In 7/230 (3 %) postnatal echocardiograms were normal, being Coarctation of the aorta the most frequent diagnosis in this group. In the period studied 3 patients with normal fetal echocardiogram performed in the second trimester developed aortic coarctation after birth requiring surgery. Identifying congenital heart defects with lower detection rates and/or higher false-positive rates helped to focus on those areas that required further attention and research.
Among these prenatal detection of Coarctation of the aorta represented the greatest diagnostic challenge. Prenatal diagnosis of most types of severe congenital heart defects is feasible and it contributes to the improvement of the patient’s outcome in many aspects. Continuous research in fetal cardiology has allowed better understanding of antenatal natural history of these diseases, more precise diagnosis and in some cases timely intervention and reduced morbidity and mortality.