Assessing the Prevalence of EIF in Second Trimester Ultrasound Screening in the Fetuses of Mothers Resorting to Mahdiyeh Medical Center of Tehran from 2014 To 2016 and their Follow Up
Roya Fallahian, Mojgan Kalantary, Elham Keshavarz and Kobra MohammadiDepartment of Radiology, Mahdieh Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran.
Corresponding Author E-mail: Mojgankalantary@gmail.com
Abstract: Echogenic intracardiac focus (EIF) is in fact a bright echogenic region in the heart of fetus. There are conflicting reports concerning the existence of EIF and affliction of fetus with major trisomies. Thus, the present research seeks to evaluate and assess the prevalence of EIF in the second trimester ultrasound screening and their postpartum follow-up. Based on the sample volume of this research, 1000 pregnant women resorting to Mahdiye Hospital for the second trimester ultrasound screening from 2014 to 2015 were selected for this descriptive research and studied for presence of EIF. The postpartum information of neonatals in terms of affliction with major trisomies was also studied and recorded. Finally, the prevalence of EIF and its correlation with major trisomies was taken into consideration. The mothers taking part in our study aged 24 to 36 years old with an average of 29.05 ± 3.56 years. The results showed existence of EIF in 3.8% of all fetuses. The prevalence of down syndrome among the population studied was 0.4% with all having EIF. All these cases belonged to mothers younger than 35 years. Positive predictive value (PPV), false predictive rate (FPR), sensitivity and exclusiveness of EIF for diagnosis of affliction with trisomy 21 in the population studied was 10, 3.4, 100, and 96.6% respectively. The results pointed to the fact that gender of fetus shows no such significant difference in the rate of affliction with down syndrome (P-value > 0.5). It also turned out that the number of EIF discovered in people with down syndrome showed a statistically significant difference compared to normal fetuses (P-value < 0.5). Based on the results achieved in this research, it is concluded that diagnosing EIF through ultrasound screening is correlated with the higher possibility of affliction with down syndrome. Presence of EIF can also act as a strong marker to predict existence of major trisomic abnormalities.
Keywords: EIF; Down Syndrome Major Chromosomal Abnormalities;Ultrasound Screening; Back to TOC