Value of sonography based volume computer aided display heart in quantitative evaluation of fetal aortic and pulmonary artery diameters

Objective To explore the feasibility of Sonography based Volume Computer Aided Display Heart (SonoVCADheart) in the display of the fetal ventricular outflow views, and compare diameters of fetal aorta (AO) and pulmonary artery (PA) measured by two-dimensional echocardiography (2DE) and SonoVCADheart. Methods Eighty singleton fetuses in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy in January 2019 in Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University College of Medicine were enrolled. Conventional 2DE examinations were performed. The volume datasets were analyzed offline using the new automatic image processing software SonoVCADheart. The diameters of AO and PA were measured by 2DE and SonoVCADheart, respectively. Pearson correlation analysis was used to evaluate the correlation between the two methods. The consistency of the two methods was verified by Bland-Altman analysis, and he reliability of SonoVCADheart was assessed using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Results Fetal ventricular outflow views were successfully obtained using SonoVCADheart in 73(91.2%) of 80 fetuses. There were good correlations between the two methods for measuring the diameters of AO and PA (r=0.953, 0.971; all P<0.001). The 95% agreement limits of AO and PA were (-0.669, 0.568)mm and (-0.632, 0.580)mm, respectively. ICC demonstrated that SonoVCADheart achieved great repeatability both between and within observers. Conclusions SonoVCADheart may have potentials for the quantitative evaluation of fetal ventricular outflow tracts with its good repeatability and reliability. Key words: Echocardiography; Sonography based Volume Computer Aided Display Heart; Aorta diameters; Pulmonary artery diameters