Relationship between fetal Nuchal translucency and fetal heart diseaes

Abstract

Heart defects are the most common congenital anomaly. Prenatal screening for such disorders is usually performed between 16 and 22 weeks of gestation with a quadruple visualization with an overall sensitivity of about 26%. This sensitivity increases to 53-78% when the major output currents are examined. The aim of this study is to evaluation of relationship between fetal Nuchal translucency and fetal heart diseaes. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted as a prospective study in 2020 in Congenital Heart Disease Clinic of Tabriz. The pregnant mothers who had referred for fetal heart echo in the first trimester of pregnancy were included in the study. NT ultrasound was performed between 11 and 14 weeks of gestation. Based on NT size, patients were divided into two groups: normal NT (less than 3 mm) as control group and abnormal NT (above 3 mm) as case group (60 people in each group and a total of 120 people); then the patients were followed up until the birth of the baby. At the time of birth, echocardiography was performed again on the baby to assess cardiac abnormalities. Then the data obtained from the two groups were compared with each other. Sampling method was available. Results: In this study, the mean (standard deviation) age of mothers in normal NT and abnormal NT groups was 28.63 (±5.3) and 30.80 (±5.4) years, respectively. Also, the mean (SD) gestational age in these two groups was 20.10 (±3.6) and 20.02 (±3.0) years, respectively. Maternal occupation in the majority of patients in both normal NT and abnormal NT groups was housewife with 52 cases (86.7%) and 48 cases (80.0%), respectively. Among the variables of maternal age, gestational age and maternal occupation, only maternal age in the abnormal NT group was significantly higher than the normal NT group (P = 0.027). Among the variables related to maternal fertility indices, none of them including gravity, para, live child and abortion, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups of normal NT and abnormal NT (P <0.05). Also, there was no statistically significant difference between the presence of congenital heart disease in the two groups of normal NT and abnormal NT (P <0.05).