ABSTRACT
The aim of the present study was to assess the accuracy of various measurements of
the lateral ventricles (LVs) for the early prenatal diagnosis of evolving congenital
hydrocephalus. A prospective study was conducted among 61 normal pregnancies, and
20 pregnancies complicated by neural axis malformations, between 19 and 24 weeks'
gestation. The following ultrasound measurements were obtained: atrial-width (AW);
atrial-width/cerebro-atrial distance (CAD); left ventricular width/hemispheric distance,
and cerebro-frontal horn/hemispheric width (HW) distance. Atrial width or AW/CAD had
the highest diagnostic accuracy of 97.1% between 19-21 weeks, and 100% between 22-24
weeks. The other two parameters had improved accuracy as gestational age increased.
However, between 19-21 weeks the other parameters were below 90% in their diagnostic
accuracy. These data demonstrate that the simple measurement of the AW, used either
singly or as a ratio with the CAD is effective for the early prenatal diagnosis of
evolving hydrocephalus.
Keywords
Prenatal diagnosis - fetus - lateral ventricle - ventriculomegaly - hydrocephalus
