Value of HDlive Flow in ultrasonographic prenatal diagnosis of velamentous placenta: analysis of 48 cases / 中华围产医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the value of HDlive Flow in prenatal diagnosis of the velamentous placenta.Methods:A total of 2 723 pregnant women underwent prenatal ultrasonography in the second trimester and delivered at Zhejiang Provincial People's Hospital from January 2019 to January 2020, and 48 of them were diagnosed as having velamentous placenta confirmed by postpartum clinical and pathological examination and were included in this retrospective analysis. Two-dimensional echocardiography-color Doppler flow imaging (2D-CDFI) and HDlive Flow were both performed during the prenatal ultrasound examination. The sonographic features of velamentous placenta by HDlive Flow were summarized and the prenatal detection rate between two methods were compared using Chi-square test. Results:The incidence of velamentous placenta was 1.8% (48/2 723) in our hospital. Out of the 48 enrolled cases, 45 were diagnosed by HDlive Flow with a detection rate of 93.8% (45/48), three of them were complicated by vasa previa; the other three cases were misdiagnosed as battledore placenta. There were 38 cases diagnosed by 2D-CDFI with a detection rate of 79.2% (38/48), which was lower than HDlive Flow ( χ2=4.360, P=0.037); the other ten cases were misdiagnosed as battledore placenta. The sonographic features by HDlive Flow were as follow (1) Umbilical cord attached to fetal membranes outside the placenta in 41 cases with the umbilical vessels distributing along the fetal membrane in a mesh pattern; (2) In three cases, the umbilical cord insertion was located on fetal membranes at the edge of placenta; (3) One case was shown that umbilical cord and the branches of umbilical vessels were inserted into the placenta in a "λ" shape. Conclusions:The anatomy of the umbilical cord, umbilical blood vessels and placenta can be directly shown under HDlive Flow, which can improve the prenatal detection rate of the velamentous placenta.