Impact of 3D ultrasound on fetal CNS examination

Abstract

Objective: An overview of current knowledge about the use of 3D ultrasound examinations for the examination of fetal CNS.

Design: A review article.

Setting: Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Palacký University and Faculty Hospital Olomouc.

Methods: Literary sources related to the subject were used, especially articles indexed by Pubmed-Medline.

Conclusion: 3D ultrasound is currently used for examination of fetal CNS structures that can be only very difficult displayed by conventional 2D ultrasound. The best for technique for visualisation of midline fetal CNS structures, respectively corpus callosum cerebellar vermis, appears to be 3D volume acquisition in a sagittal plane through the sagittal suture or large fontanel with further post-processing in multiplanar mode, OVIX (Samsung), TUI (GE Healthcare) etc.

Keywords: 2D ultrasound; 3D ultrasound; central nervous system examination; cerebellar vermis; corpus callosum; neurosonogram; prenatal diagnosis; second trimester.