Accuracy of ultrasonography in diagnosis of fetal central nervous system malformation

BACKGROUND: Prenatal examination is an important measure for the screening and diagnosis of fetal malformations. AIM: To investigate the accuracy of ultrasonography in the diagnosis of fetal central nervous system (CNS) malformations. METHODS: One hundred and thirteen pregnant women suspected of having fetal CNS malformations were examined at our hospital from December 2018 to October 2020 using two-dimensional ultrasonography and three-dimensional ultrasonography, respectively. RESULTS: According to the pathological results, there were 79 cases of CNS malformations and 34 cases of non-CNS malformations among the 113 pregnant women suspected of having fetal CNS malformation. Fifty-one cases of CNS malformation and 26 cases of non-CNS malformation were detected by two-dimensional ultrasonography, and 73 cases of CNS malformation and 30 cases of non-CNS malformation were detected by three-dimensional ultrasonography. The diagnostic sensitivity (92.41%) and accuracy (91.15%) of three-dimensional ultrasonography were higher than those of two-dimensional ultrasonography (64.56% and 68.14%, respectively) (P = 0.000). The specificity of three-dimensional ultrasonography (88.24%) was higher than that of two-dimensional ultrasonography (76.47%); however, the difference was not significant (P = 0.203). CONCLUSION: Three-dimensional ultrasonography has high application value in the diagnosis of fetal CNS malformations. In addition, the image quality is clear, and the diagnostic sensitivity and accuracy are high.