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Review
. 2020 Apr;118(2):e149-e161.
doi: 10.5546/aap.2020.eng.e149.

Congenital heart disease, prenatal diagnosis and management

[Article in English, Spanish]
Affiliations
Free article
Review

Congenital heart disease, prenatal diagnosis and management

[Article in English, Spanish]
César H Meller et al. Arch Argent Pediatr. 2020 Apr.
Free article

Abstract

Among congenital malformations, heart defects are the most common type of anomaly, and these are associated with a high perinatal, longterm morbidity and mortality. The objective of this update was to review the rate of prenatal detection, screening characteristics throughout the pregnancy, in both the first and second trimesters, indications for advanced echocardiography, and to establish a management algorithm in case of prenatal diagnosis of a congenital heart disease. Potential invasive and non-invasive tests and obstetric follow-up will be discussed here. Finally, the main characteristics of fetal therapy in heart anomalies will be reviewed, both cardiac interventions and intrauterine treatment of arrhythmias.

Dentro de las malformaciones congénitas, las cardiopatías son las anomalías más frecuentes y se asocian a una elevada morbimortalidad perinatal y a largo plazo. El objetivo de esta actualización es revisar la tasa de detección prenatal, las características del tamizaje a lo largo del embarazo, tanto en el primero como en el segundo trimestre, las indicaciones de ecocardiografía avanzada, y establecer un algoritmo de manejo ante el diagnóstico prenatal de una cardiopatía congénita. Se discutirán los estudios invasivos y no invasivos que pueden realizarse y el seguimiento obstétrico. Finalmente, se revisarán las características principales de la terapia fetal en anomalías cardíacas, tanto intervencionismo cardíaco como el tratamiento intrauterino de las arritmias.

Keywords: congenital heart disease; fetal therapy; prenatal diagnosis; screening.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

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