A preliminary study on evaluation of left ventricular systolic function in normal fetuses by automated cardiac motion quantitation / 中华超声影像学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate the feasibility and value of automated cardiac motion quantitation (aCMQ) for measuring the global and regional longitudinal strain of left ventricle in fetuses . Methods One hundred and eighteen normal fetuses were divided into 4 groups by gestational age ,standard four-chamber view clips were collected ,the global and segmental longitudinal peak systolic strain of the left ventricle were measured by aCMQ ,the variabilities of interobserver and intraobserver were analyzed . Results The success rate of aCMQ analysis was 89% . There was no significant correlation between the gestational age and the global and segmental longitudinal peak strain of the left ventricle ( r were 0 .00－0 .14 ,all P ＜0 .05) . The base and middle segmental strain values of left ventricular free wall were similar to that of the interventricular septum ( P ＞0 .05) . The strain of the apex segment was higher than those of the base and middle segment ( P ＜ 0 .05) . Interobserver and intraobserver variability showed a small bias among the observers . Conclusions aCM Q is a feasible and reproducible approach to quantitatively evaluate normal cardiac function of fetus and may have potential in fetuses with congenital heart diseases .