Predicting small for gestational age in the first trimester of pregnancy using maternal ophthalmic artery Doppler...

To assess the capacity of maternal ophthalmic Doppler indices for predicting small for gestational age (SGA) newborns in the first trimester of pregnancy.

We performed a prospective observational cohort study involving 499 singleton pregnancies during the first trimester scan (11-14 weeks). The following maternal ophthalmic Doppler indices were assessed: pulsatility index (PI), first diastolic peak velocity (PD1) and peak ratio (PR) = PD1/peak systolic velocity. We considered SGA all newborns with weight below 10th percentile. We used chi-square test (χ(2)) to compare the groups. We used area under receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves with 95% confidence intervals (CI) and detection rate of 5% of false positive of each maternal ophthalmic Doppler index and the mean uterine artery PI for prediction SGA.

27 (5.4%) patients delivered SGA newborns, 12 (2.4%) patients developed preeclampsia (PE) and delivered SGA newborns, and 460 had uneventful pregnancies (controls). We observed significant difference of PI and PR between SGA (SGA and SGA+PE) and control groups, p = 0.043 and p = 0.014, respectively. To 5% of false positive, the detection rate of SGA (SGA and SGA+PE groups) using PI, PD1 and PR were 14.8, 3.7, 14.8, 16.7, 16.7 and 16.7%, respectively. Mean uterine PI was significantly higher in the SGA+PE group (p = 0.003).

The isolated use of maternal ophthalmic Doppler indices or in combination with uterine artery Doppler, in the first trimester of pregnancy, was not efficient to predict SGA newborns.