Doppler ultrasound imaging: a new technique to detect lung hypoplasia before birth?

Combined color-coded Doppler and pulsed Doppler ultrasonography allows visualization of the fetal pulmonary circulation and study of pulmonary blood flow velocity waveforms. Systolic and diastolic changes were observed in fetal pulmonary artery flow velocity waveforms in a case of fetal pulmonary hypoplasia at 34 weeks of gestation. This observation supports our hypothesis that Doppler velocimetry can detect lung hypoplasia based on post- mortem examination of decreased total size of the pulmonary vascular bed, decreased number of pulmonary vessels per unit lung tissue and increased pulmonary vascular muscularization.