Estrategias diagnósticas de la coartación de aorta en el periodo prenatal

Abstract

Coarctation of the aorta accounts for 5 to 10% of all congenital heart diseases, with a prevalence of approximately 4 per 10 000 neonates, ranking seventh among all congenital heart diseases. It is characterized by the presence of narrowing of the caliber of the aorta artery, usually at the site of insertion of the ductus arteriosus, resulting in obstruction of blood flow. The difficulty of diagnosing CoAo in the prenatal period is related to an increase in the false positive rate, since it is generally based on a suspected diagnosis that corresponds to indirect and nonspecific signs, dependent on the gestational age of onset. Therefore, a delay in its diagnosis leads to long-term consequences favoring the presence of refractory hypertension, stroke, aortic dissection and heart failure, therefore the importance of diagnosing coarctation of the aorta in the prenatal period lies in the fact that the mortality and morbidity figures related to this disease are high when its prenatal detection is ignored.

Despite being a congenital heart disease that is difficult to diagnose, strategies such as the combination of 2D and Doppler have been implemented since they allow to observe abnormal signs and the hemodynamics of the heart, also determining that the best stage for the diagnosis of CoA is in the second trimester of pregnancy.