Reproducibility of fetal heart volume by 3D-sonography using the XI VOCAL method

BACKGROUND: To assess the reliability of fetal heart volume measurement by three-dimensional sonography (3DUS) using the eXtended Imaging Virtual Organ Computer-aided AnaLysis (XI VOCAL) method. METHODS: This reliability study enrolled 30 pregnant women with singleton healthy pregnancies between 19 and 34 weeks of gestation. All volume acquirements were performed with a convex volumetric transducer (C3-7ED) coupled to an Accuvix XQ sonography device (Medison, Korea). The XI VOCAL 10 planes was the method of choice for volumetric measurement. 3D datasets were analyzed by two observers (EQSB and HJFM); fetal heart volume was measured twice by the first and once by the second observer to calculate intra and interobserver reproducibility. Statistical analysis used pareated Student's t test (p) and calculated Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC). Bland-Altman plots were also constructed. RESULTS: We observed an excellent intra- and interobserver reliability for fetal cardiac volume assessed by XI VOCAL. For the intraobserver the ICC was 0.998 (95% CI: 0.997; 0.999), with mean of differences of 0.12 cm(3 )(95% limits of agreement: -0.84; +0.84; p = 0.130). For interobserver the ICC was 0.899 (95%CI: 0.996; 0.998), mean of differences 0.05 cm(3 )(95% limits of agreement: -0.84; +0.84; p = 0.175). CONCLUSION: Fetal cardiac volume assessed by 3DUS using XI VOCAL method is highly reproducible between 19 to 34 gestational weeks.