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Updated: Feb 14, 2026

Murine Fetal Echocardiography
Published on: February 15, 2013
Comparison of 2D versus M-mode echocardiography for assessing fetal myocardial wall thickness
Alvaro Sepúlveda-Martínez1,2, Laura García-Otero1, Iris Soveral1
1a Fetal i + D Fetal Medicine Research Center, BCNatal, Barcelona Center for Maternal-Fetal and Neonatal Medicine (Hospital Clínic and Hospital Sant Joan de Deu), Institut Clínic of Gynecology, Obstetrics and Neonatology, IDIBAPS , Universitat de Barcelona, CIBER-ER , Barcelona , Spain.
Objective:
M-mode and 2D have been proposed for evaluating fetal myocardial thickness. However, studies comparing the performance of both modalities are lacking. We aimed to compare 2D versus M-mode reproducibility for assessing myocardial wall thicknesses.
Methods:
A prospective study including 45 healthy fetuses from low-risk pregnancies evaluated between 18 and 41 weeks of gestation. Left and right ventricular free-wall and septal myocardial thicknesses were measured at end-diastole (ED) and end-systole (ES) in transverse 4-chamber view using 2D and M-mode. Intra- and interobserver reproducibility was evaluated by the concordance correlation coefficient (CCC). Both techniques were compared by t-test of the CCC.
Results:
2D and M-mode demonstrated excellent and similar intraobserver repeatability, with the best concordance in ES septal thickness (M-mode CCC 0.956 versus 2D-mode CCC 0.914). Interobserver reproducibility demonstrated also a high concordance, optimal in ES left ventricular free wall (M-mode 0.925 versus 2 D 0.855). Comparison of both techniques demonstrated a high concordance in all measurements, except for ED septal thickness with better reproducibility using M-mode (CCC 0.954 versus 0.847, p = .017).
Conclusions:
2D and M-mode can be used in a reproducible manner for measuring fetal myocardial thickness, with a slightly better performance of M-mode for assessing ED septal wall thickness.
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