Screening for heart defects in the first trimester of pregnancy: food for thought.

摘要

I would like to start this Opinion by exercising the rights of a chairperson and going beyond the Editor-in-Chief's request for me to comment on two papers in this issue of the Journal that deal with the fetal heart in the first trimester of pregnancy.I do so in order to acknowledge Professor Yves Ville's immense support for me to perform early fetal echocardiography when we worked together many years ago, as well as to recognize his early vision about the importance of performing (transabdominal) first-trimester cardiac scans in high-risk pregnancies, at a time when this was not common practice, but innovative. To stress his enthusiasm in this important area of fetal medicine is for me a 'must do' in this Opinion, but it is also a pleasure to write about first-trimester cardiac scans in Yves's last issue as Editor-in-Chief of Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology.