Keywords:
Obstetrics, Haemorrhage, Foetus, Medico-legal issues, Intrauterine diagnosis, Diagnostic procedure, Ultrasound-Colour Doppler, Ultrasound, MR, Obstetrics (Pregnancy / birth / postnatal period), Neuroradiology brain, Foetal imaging
Authors:
L. F. LONDOÑO VILLA, R. Llorens Salvador, G. Montoliu, A. Picado Bermúdez; VALENCIA/ES
DOI:
10.26044/ecr2019/C-1743
Aims and objectives
Current knowledge about fetal intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) [1] could be summarized as follows:
- Mostly occurs in the absence of identifiable risk factors.
- The most common form of presentation is intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH).
- knowledge of prenatal diagnosis criteria and prognosis of ICH is limited,
especially in cases in which the primary lesion is not IVH.
- Up to 80% of fetuses with ventriculomegaly (VM) have additional abnormalities,
including ICH among one of its causes.
[2]
- The criteria and prenatal diagnostic classifications are based mainly on ultrasound findings,
the role of fetal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is less established.
- It has been seen that MRI in this type of fetal pathology provides a more accurate and early diagnosis than ultrasonography (US) which has limitations for the detection of fetal anomalies due to its low spatial and tissular resolution which makes it especially inadequate for a definitive diagnosis of ICH,
which is one of the most important causes of fetal death as well as neonatal neurological damage [3,
4].
It has been reported that MRI can detect central nervous system (CNS) abnormalities unnoticed by the US in up to 40-50% of fetal VM cases [5] but actually there are few publications about this topic.
The aim of the present work is to evaluate the decisive role of prenatal MRI in the characterization of fetal ICH in comparison to the prenatal US.