Objectives: To investigate the clinical value of fetal heart quantification (fetal HQ) in the evaluation of normal foetal heart size, morphology and cardiac function at different gestational weeks. Materials and methods: A total of 101 pregnant women diagnosed with a healthy foetus by foetal echocardiography from September 2021 to December 2023 were selected and classified into four different periods of gestational weeks: 20-28 weeks (25 cases), 29-32 weeks (26 cases), 33-36 weeks (26 cases), 37-40 weeks (24 cases). Quantitative analyses were performed by automatically tracking the endocardium using fetal HQ software that comes with the Voluson E10 from GE. To investigate the correlation between four-chambered vesicle length end-diastolic (4CV LED), four-chambered vesicle transverse width end-diastolic (4CV TWED), global sphericity index (GSI), ejection fraction (EF), stroke volume (SV), cardiac output (CO) and gestation age (GA), and the variability of normal foetal cardiac morphology and cardiac function at different gestational weeks. Results: A statistically significant difference was observed between 4CV LED and 4CV TWED in normal foetuses at different gestational weeks ( P < 0.05), which exhibited a positive correlation with gestational week. Conversely, no significant correlation was identified between GSI and gestational week ( P > 0.05). The mean GSI of 101 normal foetuses found to be 1.25 ± 0.09. A comparative analysis of EF, SV, and CO in normal foetuses at different gestational weeks revealed statistically significant differences in SV and CO ( P < 0.05), which gradually increased with gestational weeks, whereas there was no statistically significant difference in EF ( P ＞ 0.05). Conclusions: Fetal HQ represents a straightforward and dependable method for evaluating GSI and 24-segment SI of the left and right ventricles, which can provide a certain theoretical basis for the clinical quantitative evaluation of fetal cardiac geometry and cardiac function.

Objectives: This study aims to explore the clinical value of prenatal ultrasonography in the diagnosis of the common arterial trunk (CAT) classification and associated deformities. Materials and methods: The two-dimensional ultrasound images spatiotemporal image correlations (STICs) and clinical data of 108 foetuses diagnosed with CAT malformations were retrospectively analysed, their CAT types were classified, and the correlations between these different types and foetal malformations and pregnancy outcomes were analysed. Results: Among the 108 foetuses, there were 47 cases (43.5%) of type A1, 51 cases (47.3%) of type A2, 9 cases (8.3%) of type A3 and 1 case of type A4 (0.9%), of which 22 cases (20.4%) were isolated CAT, 56 cases (51.8%) had complex intra-cardiac structural abnormalities, 30 cases (27.8%) had intra-cardiac or extra-cardiac structural abnormalities, 17 cases had 1 other system abnormality, and 5 cases had 2 other system abnormalities. Four cases were combined with 3 other system abnormalities, while 4 cases were combined with 4 other system abnormalities, among which the facial and physical abnormalities had the highest incidence (40.0%). The STIC images were completely displayed in 88 cases (81.5%). Isolated CAT and CAT combined with other malformations were significantly correlated with foetal pregnancy outcomes ( P < 0.05). Conclusions: Prenatal ultrasonography had a high clinical application value for classifying CAT. Pregnancy outcomes were highly correlated with the classification and combined intra-cardiac and extra-cardiac structural malformations. The early assessment of foetal prognosis before birth has great value for clinical intervention.