Abstract
Objective—To evaluate a casting technique in the interpretation of fetal cardiac anatomy.
Design—In 32 fetuses, the echocardiographic and cast features were compared and correlated.
Patients—Three normal fetal heart specimens from spontaneous abortuses and 32 specimens from spontaneous or induced abortions with congenital heart malformation.
Results—There was close correlation between the echocardiographic and anatomical features in 32 abnormal fetuses studied. In some, additional features of diagnosis could be displayed on the cast and the relative sizes of the cardiac structures could be appreciated and defined.
Conclusions—With increasing echocardiographic detection of congenital heart disease in early prenatal life, an increasing number of fetal heart specimens of small size are dissected for pathological confirmation. The use of silicone rubber casts to reproduce the internal anatomy proved a useful addition to dissection, providing a three dimensional model of the cardiac defect.
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Allan L. D., Crawford D. C., Anderson R. H., Tynan M. J. Echocardiographic and anatomical correlations in fetal congenital heart disease. Br Heart J. 1984 Nov;52(5):542–548. doi: 10.1136/hrt.52.5.542. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Allan L. D., Tynan M. J., Campbell S., Wilkinson J. L., Anderson R. H. Echocardiographic and anatomical correlates in the fetus. Br Heart J. 1980 Oct;44(4):444–451. doi: 10.1136/hrt.44.4.444. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Devine W. A., Debich D. E., Anderson R. H. Dissection of congenitally malformed hearts, with comments on the value of sequential segmental analysis. Pediatr Pathol. 1991 Mar-Apr;11(2):235–259. doi: 10.3109/15513819109064762. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Kilner P. J., Ho S. Y., Anderson R. H. Cardiovascular cavities cast in silicone rubber as an adjunct to post-mortem examination of the heart. Int J Cardiol. 1989 Jan;22(1):99–107. doi: 10.1016/0167-5273(89)90141-1. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Kleinman C. S., Hobbins J. C., Jaffe C. C., Lynch D. C., Talner N. S. Echocardiographic studies of the human fetus: prenatal diagnosis of congenital heart disease and cardiac dysrhythmias. Pediatrics. 1980 Jun;65(6):1059–1067. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Lange L. W., Sahn D. J., Allen H. D., Goldberg S. J., Anderson C., Giles H. Qualitative real-time cross-sectional echocardiographic imaging of the human fetus during the second half of pregnancy. Circulation. 1980 Oct;62(4):799–806. doi: 10.1161/01.cir.62.4.799. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]