Correlation between electrocardiographic and ultrasonographic time-interval measurements in fetal lamb heart

The objective of this study was to establish the echocardiographic modality that best correlates with electrical events in the fetal heart. No documentation on the relationship between electrical events recorded with a surface ECG and fetal M-mode or Doppler echocardiographic measurements is available. The following ultrasound tracings were recorded simultaneously with a surface ECG on six exteriorized near-term fetal lambs: 1) M-mode echocardiography of atrial and ventricular contractions; and 2) Doppler flow velocity waveforms in the right superior vena cava (SVC) either alone or 3) in association with those of the ascending aorta. In the SVC, the onset of the retrograde A wave and the beginning of the forward wave during ventricular systole were used as markers for the start of the P wave and QRS complex, respectively. For the simultaneous SVC and ascending aorta tracings, the beginnings of the A and of the aortic ejection waves were used as markers. On average, the atrioventricular interval was 84 ms longer than the PR interval with the M-mode, corresponding to an increase of 107%. A similar observation was made for the simultaneous Doppler signals from SVC and ascending aorta, but the difference between the atrioventricular and PR intervals was smaller, averaging 35 ms. When the SVC Doppler was taken alone, no significant difference was found between atrioventricular and ventriculoatrial compared with PR and RP intervals, respectively, and a strong correlation was found between the two methods of measurement, both for the atrioventricular (r = 0.91) and ventriculoatrial (r = 0.89) intervals. Doppler interrogation of the SVC alone and, to a lesser degree, of the SVC and ascending aorta are reliable indirect markers for the timing of electrical events of the fetal lamb heart in sinus rhythm.