Preliminary assessment of left ventricular function of α-thalassemia fetus using spatio-temporal image correlation / 中华超声影像学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To preliminary investigate fetal left heart function of fetuses in α-thalassemia using spatio-temporal image correlation (STIC).Methods 95 volumes from fetal hearts in singleton pregnancies at 20-28 weeks of gestation were collected.STIC datasets were frozen in end-systole and enddiastole.Ventricular volumes were measured using VOCAL,Inversion and SonoAVC.The stroke volume was calculated from these measurements.Results All data sets could be measured with all three techniques in this study.The intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) between techniques were all ＞ 0.90.The time necessary to measure the stroke volume was significantly shorter using SonoAVC than using VOCAL and Inversion.Bland-Altman plots showed no clinically significant mean percent differences between stroke volume measurements obtained from each ventricle using three techniques.The left ventricular end-systole volume(ESV),stroke volume(SV)and ejection fraction(EF)was significantly different than fetuses with normal heart (P ＜ 0.05).Conclusions This study shows the feasibility of measuring left ventricular volumes during either systole or diastole and thereby calculating stroke volumes with all three techniques.And there was a high degree of reliability for all three techniques,as shown by excellent ICCs.There was good accuracy of STIC techniques in measuring fetal left ventricular volumes with cardiomegaly.