Fetal Diagnostics and Fetal Intervention

Abstract

Advances in ultrasound technology and specialized training have allowed clinicians to diagnose congenital heart disease in utero and counsel families on perinatal outcomes and management strategies, including fetal cardiac interventions and fetal surgery. This article gives a detailed approach to fetal cardiac assessment and provides the reader with accompanying figures and video clips to illustrate unique views and sweeps invaluable to diagnosing congenital heart disease. We demonstrate that using a sequential segmental approach to evaluate cardiac anatomy enables one to decipher the most complex forms of congenital heart disease. Also provided is a review of fetal cardiac intervention and surgery from the fetal cardiologist's perspective.

Keywords: Congenital heart disease; Fetal diagnostics; Fetal echocardiography; Fetal intervention; Sequential segmental analysis.