Features of Prenatal Ultrasound Diagnosis of Fetal Tachyarrhythmias (literature review)

Timely prenatal diagnosis of various pathological conditions of the fetal heart is a particularly important problem of obstetric practice. For this purpose, the most frequently used are innovative ultrasound diagnostic technologies that give the opportunity to timely detect various fetal arrhythmias. Clinically significant arrhythmias are established to develop in fetuses and newborns in 1 out of 4,000 live births and are one of the causes of morbidity and mortality. About 10% of fetal arrhythmias require intrauterine treatment or constant monitoring, and they may also indicate the presence of serious hereditary syndromes associated with cardiac rhythm disorders and the likelihood of sudden infant death. The purpose of the review is to study the material of literature sources devoted to the primary prenatal ultrasound diagnosis of clinically significant fetal arrhythmias and dynamic echographic control in the management of pregnant women with fetal tachyarrhythmia. During the research, available domestic and foreign sources were used, which presented the features of the course of fetal cardiac arrhythmias, their types, and the possibilities of prenatal ultrasound diagnosis of this pathology. The search for publications is performed in databases eLIBRARY.RU , RSCI, PubMed, Embase. Based on the results of the analysis and generalization of the studied publications, it was found that ultrasound examination of the fetal heart plays a key role in the diagnosis of arrhythmias, it helps to determine the main mechanism of rhythm disturbance, assess the effect of arrhythmia on the fetal heart's functioning, exclude possible structural changes in the fetal heart, as well as enables to monitor the fetal condition during antiarrhythmic therapy. If fetal arrhythmias are suspected, an urgent ultrasound examination with ultrasound Dopplerography is recommended with an extension of the standard protocol for examining the fetal heart with an assessment of the frequency of atrial and ventricular contractions.