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Fetal Medicine

Meet Karen Texter, MD, Director of Fetal Echocardiography at Nationwide Children’s
 Meet Karen Texter, MD, Director of Fetal Echocardiography at Nationwide Children’s 1024 691 Abbie Miller
By: Abbie Miller

Karen Texter, MD, is a pediatric cardiologist and director of Fetal Echocardiography at Nationwide Children’s. Her clinical and research interests include echocardiography in congenital and acquired heart disease and fetal cardiology. What inspired you to pursue a career in pediatric cardiology? How did you get into fetal cardiology, specifically? My interest in pediatric cardiology really…

Researchers Identify Potential Prenatal Biomarkers of Congenital Heart Diseases
 Researchers Identify Potential Prenatal Biomarkers of Congenital Heart Diseases 1024 637 Katelyn Scott
By: Katelyn Scott
Heart with HLHS compared to typically developed heart

In a research letter published in Circulation Research, researchers at Nationwide Children’s describe a potential biomarker that would identify the presence of SVHD in a fetus based on a maternal blood test. Single ventricle heart diseases (SVHDs), the most severe type of congenital heart disease require immediate treatment after birth. A growing number of fetal…

Optimizing Prenatal and Neonatal Care for Infants With Treatable Rare Diseases
 Optimizing Prenatal and Neonatal Care for Infants With Treatable Rare Diseases 1024 619 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES
By: Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

As new treatments emerge and diagnostics improve, earlier interventions offer infants with rare metabolic and neurodegenerative conditions a future wildly different than ever before. Not long ago, a diagnosis of molybdenum cofactor deficiency (MoCD) type A meant death before kindergarten. Since the FDA approval of NULIBRY® (fosdenopterin) in 2021, however, children diagnosed with MoCD type…

Tissue Engineering and Fetal Medicine: A New Frontier for Congenital Heart Disease
 Tissue Engineering and Fetal Medicine: A New Frontier for Congenital Heart Disease 1024 575 Abbie Miller
By: Abbie Miller
Fetus in utero receiving valvuloplasty

Procedures that utilize cardiac catheterization to improve fetal heart development are often successful, but they are not without risk. And even if they can successfully prevent the development of single ventricle disease, there is always ongoing heart valve disease (HVD). HVD may not be as life-threatening as single ventricle disease, but it requires lifelong care.…

Technical Aspects of Fetal Aortic Valvuloplasty Predict Success of the Procedure
 Technical Aspects of Fetal Aortic Valvuloplasty Predict Success of the Procedure 1024 575 Mary Bates, PhD
By: Mary Bates, PhD
Fetus in utero receiving valvuloplasty

The procedure is often successful but comes with significant risks to fetal health and life. Fetal aortic valvuloplasty (FAV) is a procedure performed mid-gestation in a subset of fetuses with aortic stenosis who would likely develop hypoplastic left heart syndrome with no intervention. Although often successful, it is a high-risk procedure that is associated with…

For Some Fetuses With HLHS, One Follow-up Echocardiogram May Be Enough
 For Some Fetuses With HLHS, One Follow-up Echocardiogram May Be Enough 1024 575 Kevin Mayhood
By: Kevin Mayhood

“Not every patient with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, also known as HLHS, is the same: there appears to be a high-risk group that has significant atrioventricular valve regurgitation, atrial septal restriction or other concerns; and a low-risk group that, on their first scan, has none of these comorbidities of the heart,” says Bernadette Richards, FASE,…

Fetal Balloon Aortic Valvuloplasty for Critical Aortic Stenosis
 Fetal Balloon Aortic Valvuloplasty for Critical Aortic Stenosis 1024 575 Abbie Miller
By: Abbie Miller
Fetus in utero receiving valvuloplasty

Some heart defects, such as aortic stenosis can be detected on fetal ultrasound. For some fetuses, an intervention can be beneficial before birth. Aimee Armstrong, MD, director of Cardiac Catheterization and Interventional Therapies at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, performs fetal balloon aortic valvuloplasty among other fetal heart catheterization procedures as part of the Congenital Heart Collaborative, a…