Prenatal ultrasound diagnosis of otocephaly and review of the literatures / 中华医学超声杂志（电子版）

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the ultrasound characteristics of prenatal fetus otocephaly . Methods Three prenatal fetus with otocephaly were examined with two -and three-dimensional ultrasoundand examined results were compared with the those of induced labor or autopsy ,and ultrasound characteristicsof prenatal fetus were analyzed and summarized .Results The ultrasound performance of three prenatal fetuswith otocephaly and the examination of the appearance after induced labor showed(1) The most intuitiveinitial sonographic performance of otocephaly was manifested by the absence of stomach bubble andoverabundance of amniotic fluid.Among three fetus,one fetus had overabundance of amniotic fluid at the midstageof pregnancy,one fetus had normal amniotic fluid at the mid-stage of pregnancy and one fetus hadextremely high amount of amniotic fluid and absence of stomach bubble at late stage of pregnancy .(2) Allthree fetus showed agnathy and synotia (shifts of both ears to the midline) and microstomia deformity.(3) All three fetus had associated complications with deformity in other systems including two cases of patients withcleft lip and palat,both were the fracture unilateral cleft lip derived from small mouth .One fetus withdysmelia and one fetus with complicated cardiovascular deformity and situs inversus and .(4) The results ofexamination after induced labor or autopsy were consistent with those of the prenatal ultrasound examination . Conclusions Prenatal ultrasound examination is an effective and feasible means for the diagnoses ofotocephaly.When the symptoms of “absence of stomach bubble and extremely high amount of amniotic fluid ”occurred,the fetal ear and submaxilla should be examined to confirm stand -alone otocephaly prenatally.