Doppler interrogation of the umbilical venous flow

Abstract

The first reports about measurements of fetal umbilical venous blood flow in human fetuses go back to the early 1980s. Eik-Nes et al. in 1980 [1], Gill et al. in 1981 [2], and Eik-Nes et al. in 1982 [3] reported measurements obtained on the "intrahepatic" umbilical vein. It was not always certain whether these were sampled before the portal sinus, i.e., the origin of the portal veins. This pioneering era came to an end when Erskine and Ritchie [4] and Giles et al. [5] came to the conclusion that "The results obtained are in keeping with previous studies but indicate that, although the method is relatively simple, determination of absolute blood flow in these vessels has little clinical potential because of inherent measurement inaccuracies." Fortunately, over more than a decade, these statements on quantitative "measurement inaccuracies" and on "poor clinical potential" in the diagnosis of fetal growth restriction were challenged, among others by Gerson et al. [6], Reed et al. [7], Sutton et al. [8], Schmidt et al. [9], and Challis et al. [10]. © 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.