Innovative technologies for intrauterine monitoring of predictive markers of vascular and neurological well-being

Abstract

After Barker's hypothesis, an increasing number of subsequent epidemiological studies confirmed the link among low birth weight (LBW), rapid weight gain in the first years of life, obesity in adolescent period, and increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), stroke, glucose intolerance, and type II diabetes in adult life. Studies conducted in fetuses, neonates, children, and adolescents born intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) point to the possibility that endothelial dysfunction, evaluated by aorta intima-media thickness (aIMT), carotid IMT (cIMT), carotid stiffness, central pulse wave velocity, brachial artery flow-mediated dilation, endothelium-dependent microvascular vasodilatation, echocardiographic evaluation, and arterial blood pressure, may be an inborn characteristic of subjects with LBW that persists from childhood to adult life. IUGR is a very complex and multifactorial disorder with long-term persistence of CVD older in patients who suffered IUGR early in life. Innovative technological research in the areas of cardiovascular disease allows to deepen the study of cardiac function through wall study. The prenatal and postnatal vascular modifications showed in several human and animal studies by blood pressure and cardiac modifications in IUGR, which appear small, seem to be clinically relevant and/or a major contributor to Barker's hypothesis association of birth weight with ischemic heart disease.