Echocardiographic assessment of patent ductus arteriosus in preterm infants

Abstract

Material and methods. The study included 57 premature newborns up to 37 weeks of gestation with PDA (main group) and 24 newborns without PDA (control group). Echocardiographic studies were carried out with all subjects.
Results. The average age of premature newborns with PDA was 55.0±12.4 days, boys accounted for 45.6%, girls - 54.4%. The average age of healthy newborns was 63.0±11.6 days, boys were 45.8%,girls - 54.2%. The results of echocardiography of the main and control groups did not differ significantly (p>0.05). Of the studied 57 newborns with PDA, 40.4% of cases had high values, and 59.6% of cases had low values of PDA. Ejection and contraction fractions in newborns with high PDA were higher by 7.0% (p>0.05) and 9.8% (p>0.05), respectively. Indicators of early and late diastolic filling were also higher by 23.7% (p>0.05) and 38.9% (p>0.05), respectively. At the same time, the ratio of these indicators in newborns with high PDA values was lower than in children with low PDA values by an average of 18.7% (p>0.05). With high rates of PDA, the end diastolic and systolic sizes of the left ventricle were lower by 5.9% (p>0.05) and 3.5% (p>0.05), respectively. The values of the diameter of the interventricular septum and the ratio of end-diastolic size/aorta in newborns with high PDA were higher by an average of 17.3% (p>0.05) and 7.6% (p>0.05), respectively.
Conclusion All preterm infants should have echocardiography. Echocardiography is a safe method for detecting a PDA and classifying it as high and low PDA. The conducted study allows us to state the need to study long-term outcomes in premature newborns with PDA, identified by echocardiographic evaluation.