Comparison of fetal echocardiography and postnatal cases of congenital heart disease and postoperative follow-up of newborns

Abstract

Congenital heart disease (CHD) are the most common birth defects, with an incidence of about 1%, however, the rates of antenatal screening are variable, in part due to the absence of an effective method of screening prenatal because 90% of fetuses with heart disease comes from pregnant women considered low risk. The two-dimensional echocardiography is the most widely used method for the prenatal diagnosis of CHD, however, is an expensive technique, available in a few centers in need of highly qualified professionals, and is performed only in high-risk pregnancies, which are responsible for only 10% of fetuses with CHD. Furthermore, few studies have compared prenatal echocardiography with the echocardiography postnatal considered the gold standard for confirming the DCC. The neonatal heart surgery is performed in DCC complex; however, it still shows high rates of neonatal morbidity and mortality. Little is known about the short-term surgical outcomes as well as the monitoring of these newborns. Objectives: There will be a retrospective cross-sectional study of medical records of fetuses with CHD who had follow-up at Hospital São Paulo, Federal University of São Paulo, from January 2007 to January 2012. Will be compared the diagnoses made by prenatal echocardiography with those obtained by postnatal echocardiography (gold standard). It will be further assessed in the follow-up of all newborns operated by DCC to six months of life. To compare the techniques will be used the Kappa coefficient. For the analysis of postnatal follow-up, we will use descriptive analyzes, by absolute and relative frequencies. (AU)