Affiliation:
1. the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology (P.v.S., J.W.W.) and Institute of Epidemiology and Biostatistics (T.S.), University Hospital Rotterdam-Dijkzigt, Netherlands.
Abstract
Background
Doppler ultrasonography was used to determine the nature and gestational age-related changes of human fetal AV flow-velocity waveforms and to establish their relationship with arterial impedance indexes and venous flow velocities in normal human fetuses between 8 and 20 weeks of gestation.
Methods and Results
Flow-velocity waveform recordings were attempted in 318 singleton pregnancies. After the exclusion criteria were applied, data on 214 women were available for further analysis. Differentiation between E wave and A wave became possible at 9 weeks, whereas distinction between transmitral and transtricuspid valve flow velocities was first achieved at 10 to 11 weeks. A statistically significant nonlinear gestational age-dependent increase was established for all AV waveform parameters, which became linear when related to logarithmically estimated fetal crown-to-rump length. Transtricuspid valve flow velocities were significantly higher than transmitral valve flow velocities. Transmitral valve time-averaged flow velocities were positively correlated with peak diastolic velocities and time-velocity integral of late-diastolic reverse flow in the inferior vena cava. No correlation existed between AV time-averaged velocities and arterial impedance indexes.
Conclusions
Monophasic AV flow-velocity waveforms can be recorded as early as 8 weeks of gestation and become biphasic as early as 8 weeks. They demonstrate a linear increase relative to logarithmically estimated fetal crown-to-rump length, suggesting that fetal growth-related increase in volume flow plays a role in this velocity rise. Transtricuspid valve A-wave and E-wave velocities suggest right ventricular predominance as early as the late first trimester of pregnancy. AV flow velocities are not related to arterial downstream impedance.
Publisher
Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health)
Subject
Physiology (medical),Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine
Cited by
51 articles.
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