PRENATAL SCREENING FOR CARDIAC ANOMALIES - THE VALUE OF ROUTINE ADDITION OF THE AORTIC ROOT TO THE 4-CHAMBER VIEW

Objective: To determine whether the addition of the aortic-root view w ould detect more congenital cardiac anomalies than a standard four-cha mber view alone.Methods: The study included fetuses of 14 weeks' gesta tion or more who were scanned in our unit during a 28-month period. Ou tcome information was obtained from postnatal echocardiograms and auto psies. Abnormal hearts were classified as to whether the four-chamber or aortic-root view was abnormal. Results: There were 5967 fetuses in whom a four-chamber view could be obtained. In 5111 of these, an aorti c-root view could also be obtained. The four-chamber view detected 24 (47%) of the 51 fetuses with abnormal hearts. Adding the aortic-root v iew increased the sensitivity to 78%. Conclusions: Visualization of th e aortic root is a quick and easy means of evaluating the aortic outfl ow tract during routine scanning. Adding the aortic-root view to the s tandard four-chamber view will result in the detection of most cardiac anomalies prenatally.