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First‐Trimester Assessment of the Fetal Palate
Author(s) -
Sepulveda Waldo,
Cafici Daniel,
Bartholomew Julie,
Wong Amy E.,
Martinez-Ten Pilar
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of ultrasound in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.574
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1550-9613
pISSN - 0278-4297
DOI - 10.7863/jum.2012.31.9.1443
Subject(s) - medicine , coronal plane , fetal head , 3d ultrasound , fetus , sagittal plane , first trimester , ultrasound , orthodontics , radiology , pregnancy , biology , genetics
We describe a new technique that can facilitate the first‐trimester examination of the fetal palate using the Volume NT algorithm (Samsung Medison, Seoul, Korea), a program that automatically detects the exact midsagittal plane of the head and is primarily designed for semiautomatic measurement of the nuchal translucency thickness. Three‐dimensional (3D) data sets from the fetal face were captured with Volume NT and subsequently reformatted with the Oblique View software to obtain orthogonal views of the primary and secondary palate in coronal and axial planes, respectively. By testing this method in selected 3D data sets obtained retrospectively (n = 12) and prospectively (n = 28), we were able to extract clinically acceptable views of the fetal palate in all cases. This preliminary report shows that with this new 3D automation development, early evaluation of the fetal palate is feasible and reproducible and could be easily incorporated into the first‐trimester sonographic protocol once its ability to detect abnormal cases is demonstrated.